


Watching The Maze Runner

by Jack_and_Sally



Series: Characters Watch the Maze Runner [1]
Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Characters watch the movies, Dark Comedy, Developing Relationship, M/M, be warned, more characters coming soon, you know whats coming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:07:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25825615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jack_and_Sally/pseuds/Jack_and_Sally
Summary: After the events of ‘The Death Cure’ The characters, past and present, of Maze Runner are transported to a mysterious movie theater-like room.
Relationships: Newt/Thomas (Maze Runner)
Series: Characters Watch the Maze Runner [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2158314
Comments: 48
Kudos: 185





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Might have a few grammar mistakes and irregular updates.

Chapter 1

Thomas was sitting on the bed inside of his hut reading a letter. It was Newt's letter; his last words to Thomas after his mind had been taken over by the Flare. Thomas had first discovered it three months earlier, when he first woke up in the Safe Haven. The wrinkles in the old paper had only increased since he’d first unfolded it. Thoams re-read it almost everyday trying to find some hidden meaning behind the goodbye and words of encouragement from Newt. He was on the second to last line when a sudden blinding length engulfed him along with a sensation of falling. 

When he finally regained his senses, he found himself in a dark room filled with chairs. Looking around, he noticed there was a huge screen along the wall to his left. It was only a moment before a sudden thump came from behind him. Turning quickly, he saw that it was a person. Upon a second look, he recognized it to be Minho, similarly confused. After the appearance of his close friend, a flud of people were transported in.

All of the new arrivals were in various states of dress and health. After about a minute of scathing shock at what he was seeing, Thomas sprang up and tried to reach for the gun on his thigh that was mysteriously gone. In front of him, were not only the dead gladers from the maze, but also Ava Paige and Janson. 

It was impossible, there was no way that they could be alive. He watched almost all of them die in front of his eyes. Even Chuck was there, looking ruffled and gasping at the face of every glader in front of him, including Alby. 

Choosing to temporarily push aside the fact the Alby and the other dead gladers were alive and semi-healthy, Thomas turned back to Janson, who was just now getting up from his spot on the floor and shifted to make eye contact with the one teenager who ruined all of his plans. Before he could get even a single insult in, he was interrupted by Thomas being tackled by a tangle of limbs and blonde hair. 

Sitting up to identity and possibly defend himself from his attacker, Thomas looked up only to be met with the face of Newt. After about a minute of just looking into Newt's blue eyes, eyes that he hadn't seen in months after losing him to the virus, Thomas surged up and similarly tackled Newt in a hug. 

They stayed like that for 5 minutes until a sudden sound echoed through the room. Sitting up newt still gripping onto his shirt, they looked up to see a banner of sorts had appeared across the top of the screen. It said:

**“Today, you all will be watching the beginning. The beginning of how The Maze Runners defeated W.C.K.D and regained their freedom.”**

“The maze runners?” Newt asked. “Do they mean us?” “I think so…” says Thomas. 

Suddenly, the screen lit up, displaying a title screen that read:

“The Maze Runner” 

  
To be continued....


	2. Thomas's Introduction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The characters finally start watching the movie, and those who weren't there get to see what it was like to live in The Maze.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There may be a few grammar mistakes, and if you find any, please comment so I can edit them.

**The scene changes to show darkness when a sudden noise appears that sounds like a shaft of some sort.**

Everyone who was in the glade or other mazes, along with the directors or Wicked recognise the sound. 

**The image slowly fades into showing a fence like walls containing packages that appear when the newly identified elevator passes a light on the shaft wall.**

**After a squeaking sound echoes through, a sudden gasp of air encompases the elevator. The screen shows Thomas, who seems to be gasping for air suddenly as he regains consciousness.**

“Where is he ?” asks Brenda. “The box is how they transport new immunes into the mazes” respondes Newt.

**Thomas is shone, throwing up water and trying to hold himself up as he gasps in the air.**

**He looks around, trying to figure out where he is, and tries to get up, leaning on some of the packages. Looking down, he sees the never ending abyss below him, and continues to choke on coughs.**

**A scream from one of the boxes startles him, as he tries to get away from the noise.**

“Holy-, that sacred me” gasps out Jorge, who’s recovering from the sudden jump scare. 

“Yeah I klunked my pantes when I first heard it” laughs Chuck.

**The elevator is still moving up quickly, as Thomas reaches forward to see what made the scream. He pulled back a piece of fabric to reveal that a hog was inside of a cage, which screams again at the sight of thomas.**

**He falls back in response to the scream and tries to pull himself away from the animal using nearby barrels and packages.**

“You were really scared of the pig?” questions Gally, who has been silent so far. 

“Well when you wake up in a dark shaft, with no memory of how you got there, and suddenly, there's a giant pig screaming in your face, it's normal to be a little scared.” says thomas indignantly. 

**Thomas is shone trying to reach up and grab the roof of the elevator, yelling, when he sees that the top of the shaft is approaching.**

**Thomas falls back onto the floor in surprise, as the elevator stops and red lights flood the room. As he’s looking round again, green light takes over the red and a corresponding beep sounds through the shaft until total darkness takes over.**

Brenda, who is seemingly shocked, says, “I've never seen you that scared before Thomas.”

“Yeah i was terrified”

**In the darkness the premeditating sound is the heavy gasps of the lone teenager echoes, apparently calming down slowly, is thrust back into panic and an alarming screen of metal doors attacks his ears, along with sudden brightness, causing him to bring his arm up to cover his eyes.**

  
  


**The camera angle shows Thomas wearing a dirty blue shirt and brown pants covered in sweat and dirt.**

**Thomas attempts to move his arm to see past the sunlight, showing a group of boys crowding along the sides, looking down at him through the top.**

**They start to laugh at him, which confuses Thomas, as they open up the box.**

“I didn’t know it looked like that, it looks creepy” says Newt. “I was one of the first, so I only saw Alby and a few others” he responded to the questioning looks. 

**One of the boys climbs down into the box, he has short hair, arched eyebrows above light blue eyes and a permanent look of annoyance and displeasure on his face. He leans down to thomas, pushing his face close and says,**

**“Day one greenie, rise and shine” as he grabs Thomas by his shirt and throws him onto the grass, as others continue to laugh at him.**

“You look scary as klunk gally” says Chuck with a responding “I Know”

**The screen shows them crowding around him on the floor, and shifts to show Newt, wearing a tan shirt along with a harness, looking along with everyone else with a smirk on his face.**

**They can hear fry pan saying in a teasing voice “could use him up in the kitchen.” and responding peals of laughter. The sound seems to increase in volume and intensity as they slowly over welm Thomas, causing him to scramble up and shove his way out of the group.**

**As Thomas sprints away, there are more echoes of laughter behind him along with exclamations of “We gotta runner!”**

**The angle changes to be beside Thomas as he runs, and you can hear his erratic heartbeat in the background along with his gasps of air.**

“You were destined to be a runner from the first moment you appeared in the maze”, says Alby. Thomas grins back at him. 

**Thomas runs for a couple of seconds before his foot falls into hole, causing him to trip and fall. Responding joyful yells originate back at the group, who had been watching him run.**

There're echoes of laughter inside the room from the gladers and those who know thomas.

**There are calls of “Nice!” and laughter behind him as he slowly stands up.**

**The camera circles around Thomas as he looks around the glade, still panting from his sprint across a field of grass.**

**Behind him, you can see stone walls on each side of him,effectively casing everyone in, except for a single gap between the wall closest to him.**

“Uh oh, I can see where this is going” Brenda groans as Thomas glares at her. 

**The screen switches to black as music plays in the background.**

“What? You're definitely going to run through there at some point, I just know it. You're way too curious for your own good” 

“Ain't that the truth” says gally.

**When the scene begins, it shows the gladers throwing Thomas into a sort of below ground cage and locking him in. The greenie stands up and looks outside. He sees people milling about when his view shifts to the opening in the wall. He continues to look at it when he is scared by someone appearing by the door, causing him to fall back down below.**

**The person is a young dark-skinned man who starts to talk to thomas.**

**“Hey there green bean. You’re not gonna run again, Okay.”**

“Thats where greenie comes from?” asks teresa. 

“Yep.” respondes a chipper Chuck.

**“Good.”**

**The young man unlocks the door and opens it, crouching in the entrance.**

**“My name is Ably. Now can you tell me a bit about yourself, who you are, where you came from? Anything at all?”**

“Hey it's you Alby look!” says Chuck excitedly. 

“I know, Calm down” Alby says warmly.

**Thomas looks like he's starting to panic and is shaking where he sits, with his hands fidgeting on his knees where they’re pulled up to his chest.**

**Thomas breaths in a shaky breath, “...”**

**“Can you tell me your name?”**

**“... no.. i- i- i can't remember anything. Why can't i remember anything?”**

“You didn't even remember your name at first?” asks a concerned Vince, who’s sitting next to a resigned looking Mary.

“Not at first, but eventually you remember it. It’s the one thing they let you keep.” explaines Alby.

**Thomas seems to be at the beginning of a panic attack.**

**“Hey Relax. Relax… It's normal.”**

**Thomas breaths in another shaky breath.**

**“It happens to us all. You’ll get your name back in a day or two.”**

**Alby pauses.. “It's the one thing they let us keep.”**

The gladers nod along, “He always says that to us and the new greenies.” says Minho. 

**Thomas looks up, “what is this place?”**

**Alby smiles and reaches his hand out for thomas to grab,**

**“Lemme show you.”**

**The scene changes to show a wide view of the glade, various boys are walking around and doing different jobs.**

“The fact that these young boys could peacefully coexist together is incredible.” says Dr Paige. 

“It wasn't always like that, and you know that. You spent your free time watching us struggle for years to survive, while you sat in your shiny office sipping tea.” Said Gally angrily.

**As the camera moved, to show the many different areas and boys scattered around, Albys voice appeared.**

**“We eat here, sleep here, we grow our own food, we build our own shelter. Whatever we need, the Box provides. The rest is up to us.”**

**“The Box?” says Thomas as he looks over to the elevator that brought him up.**

**“Yeah, it's sent up once a month with fresh supplies and a new Greenie. This month that's you.” Alby says as he looks at thomas.**

**“Congratulations.”**

“I wouldn't say that's something to congratulate.” says Brenda. 

**“Sent up? By who? Who put us here?”**

**“Yeah, we don't know.”**

“How could you stand the curiosity?” asks Jorge

“I didn’t.” says thomas.

“Well of course you didn't, you're too stubborn for that.” jokes Newt. “We just didn’t think about it and continued working most of the time.”

**“ ‘Ey you alright Alby?” says a familiar voice.**

**“Aha, Green Bean, meet Newt.”**

“Newt you look so much younger in this.” says Aris.

“Yeah the Scorch can have its effects on ye’” He responds.

**“Hi.” Newt says as they shake hands.**

**“When i'm not around he’s in charge.” Alby says with a distinctive smile on his face.**

**“Well it's a good thing you're always around then.” says Newt.**

**“That’s a nice somersault you made earlier. Ya know, for a second there I thought you had the chops to be a runner. Till you face planted”**

Laughter filled the room at Newt's declaration. 

“You jinxed it, Newt.” said Minho.

**Alby laughs, “Great.”**

**“Wait- Runner?” asks thomas.**

**Ably leans over to Newt's ear, “Newt do me a favor and go find Chuck?”**

**Newt nods and brushes past them to go find said glader.**

**“Look I'm sorry to rush this,” Alby grabs Thomas by the shoulder and pulls him along. “You came up a little late. And there's a lot to do. We got somethin special planned tonight… yeah”**

**Alby ahd to pull Thomas again because he kept looking around.**

**“You’ll see.”**

**The screen shows them coming up to a tree fort of wood and sticks.**

**“Hope you're not afraid of heights. Lets go. Come on”**

**Thomas eyes the tree suspiciously.**

“You were so not up for climbing that ladder” Newt says through giggles. 

**As the camera angle switches, it shows them on top of the fort.**

**“This is all we got.” explains Alby as they look at the walls closing them in.**

**“We worked hard for it. You respect this place, you and I'll get along just fine.”**

**“What's out there?” thomas mutters.**

**The camera shows into the opening, and you can see ivy covering the walls into darkness.**

**Alby looks Thomas up and down, as if he was assessing him.**

“He probably saw that you were gonna try to go in at some point” says Gally sourly.

**“We only have three rules. First, do your part. ‘No time for any free loaders. Second, never harm another glader. None of this works unless we have trust. And most importantly,”**

**Alby pushing closer to thomas,**

**“Never go beyond those walls. You understand me greenie?”**

“Oh he totally knew you were a troublemaker from the start.” laughs Chuck.

**Another voice yells from the bottom, “Hey Alby!”**

**They turn to look over the edge and see a short and chubby boy, who was younger than Thomas with curly hair. He waves to Alby.**

**“Hey Chuck, where you been?”**

“It's me!”smiles Chuck 

**“It's the same story for all of us,” begins Chuck as he hangs up a new hammock for Thomas to sleep on. “We wake up in the Box, Alby gives us the tour, then here we are. Don't worry, you’re already doin’ better than i did. I klunked my pants three times before they got me out of the pit.”**

**When Chuck turns around, he sees that Thomas has disappeared from where he was sitting and is walking toward the opening.**

“Of course that brat was already walking there, he is insufferable and can't even follow a simple rule.” spits Janson, receiving glares from everyone in the room besides Dr. Paige. 

**Chuck grumbles and rushes to catch up to him.**

**“Dude, where are you going?”**

**“Uh- I just wanna see.”**

“Liar, you just wanted to go through there.” says gally.

**“You can look around all you want, but you better not go out there.”**

**“Why not?” Thomas askes annoyed. “What's through there?”**

**“I don't know. I just know what I'm told, that I'm not supposed to leave.”**

**Thomas sighs, but then he sees two people running out of the opening, who then pass by them. One of them is wearing a blue button down shirt and is asian, who then calls out to chuck.**

**“Hey chuck.”**

**The other, with blonde hair and white shirt asks chuck, “New Greenie huh? How's it feel to be promoted?”**

**“Feels great Ben.” Chuck says, sounding glad to be rid of the status.**

“Isn't this the day before-” chuck begins, “Yes.” interrupts Alby, not looking forward to having to watch it again. 

**“I thought no one was allowed to leave?” Thomas asks, visibly annoyed with the withheld information.**

**“I said** **_we’re_ ** **not allowed to leave. They're different, they're runners, they know more about The Maze than anyone.”**

“Shouldn’t have said that chuck, now he’s even more curious.” says Newt with a smirk on his face. 

**“Wait what?”**

**“What?”**

**“What- You just said maze.”**

**Thomas points to the opening.**

**“Wh- uh- I did?”**

**“Yeah” Thomas says disgruntled.**

**They look towards the entrance, and the camera switches to look out from inside the opening and there seems to be a creepy noise coming from behind.**

**From there Thomas strides into view to get a better look inside.**

**“Wh- where’re you going? What’re you doing?”**

**“I'm just gonna take a look.'' Thomas says, putting a placitating hand on Chuck's shoulder to keep him out of the way.**

**Chuck grabs him by the arm, “you can't. No one leaves. Especially not now.”**

“Why not now?” questions Vince.

“You’ll see.” answers Thomas. 

**“Not safe.”**

**“Okay, alright. I'm not gonna go.”**

**Thomas starts to walk closer as Chuck eyes him warily.**

**The view switches to be looking down the corridor. It has a haunting feel to it that screams danger to anyone outside.**

**Just as Chuck was about to call Thomas back, he was interrupted by someone.**

**“Hey!”**

**All of sudden Thomas is thrown away from the opening by a powerful shove.**

“You didn’t need to shove him that hard gally. He was just looking.” says newt angrily.

**He falls to the ground and the boy who pulled him out of the box before stands above him.**

**Panting, the boy says, “We gotta stop meeting like this greenie.”**

**Thomas, angry, kicks the boy in the legs and grunts,**

**“Get off me!”**

**Thomas tries to quickly crawl away, and it appears the boy hadn’t expected this type of reaction when he starts saying,**

**“alright , calm calm calm calm.”**

“You can't shove him so hard then expect him to be completely fine with it. I would have reacted the same way.” Says Minho, clearly annoyed with what was playing out. 

**Thomas tries to get away from the boy, which attracts the attention of the other gladers, making them run over. In the background you can hear thomas saying, “Don't touch me!” and the boy tries to get him to call down.**

**As everyone runs over Thomas yells, “What the hell is wrong with you guys?!”**

**Newt comes closer and says,**

**“Just calm down, alright.”**

**“No! , Okay! Why wont you tell me what's out there!?” says Thomas, who seems to be panicking.**

“I was a jumble of emotions at that moment, I was freaking out cause no one would tell me anything.” Thomas says to those who were giving him surprised looks at his outburst in the film.

**Ably starts reaching out a placitating hand,**

**“We’re just trying to protect you man.”**

**“Its for your own good.” Newt continues from Thomas's left.**

**“You guys can't just keep me here!” Thomas says.**

**“We can't let you leave.” alby tries to say.**

**“Why not?!”**

“Dude, you sound like you're really panicking!” exclaimed frypan. 

**A rumble echoes from behind him.**

“That doesn't sound good in the slightest.” says Mary. Janson smirks, The Grievers were some of his favorite toys.

**Thomas looks over his shoulder to look and hear and a monstrous roar comes from deep within the maze followed with strong wind making the gladers cover their faces.**

**Thomas looks rightly terrified.**

**“What the hell?” he mutters.**

**Suddenly, the doors start to make a loud scraping sound as they slowly push together, effectively closing the opening.**

“Why did they close?” 

**To be Continued...**


	3. "Im Thomas!"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas is introduced to life in the glade, and experiences how the gladers have fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There might be a few typos sorry :/

Chapter 3

“Why did they close?” asked Jorge, confused on what the problem could be. 

**“Next time, I'm gonna let you leave.” said the boy.**

**Thomas, still shocked at how the doors closed right in front of him, was still looking up, as if they would open again if he continued watching.**

**Alby stepped up close behind him and said in his ear,**

**“Welcome to the Glade.”**

**As every one left Thomas there, the wind began to blow faster and the sound of drums appeared.**

**The scene changes to show the gladers lighting torches standing in a circle around a bonfire pit.**

**“Light em up!” called Alby and they threw them into the pit, lighting it on fire. After it started to burn brightly they were yelling and screaming in celebration.**

“So you guys even had parties there?” said Brenda, sounding impressed. 

“Just cause we were trapped didn't mean we had to be miserable the whole time.” said Frypan looking appreciatively at the emotions pouring out the screen.

**Looking closer at the bonfire, there seem to be animal bones on sticks put together to look like some form of monster at the center of the fire.**

“What is that?” asked Mary, looking disturbed. 

The present gladers just shrugged, it was just animal bones made to look creepy. What could you expect, they were teenage boys. 

**It showed Alby at the front, leading the cheers, before switching to other gladers playing the drums, before one of them flipped past doing some form of acrobatics.**

**Frypan was shown with another boy, yelling and holding a glass filled with a mystery liquid.**

“What're you drinking?” asked Jorge, looking very interested at what could have these boys so crazy. 

Frypan just laughed, “I'm sure it'll be explained eventually.”

**The boy from before appeared, seemingly eating and talking with others.**

**The camera angle then switched to a group holding up their glasses in cheers.**

**The image faded to show the darkness permeating through the glade. The closed doors, a fixture in the night.**

**Thomas and Newt are shown, their backs leaning against a log on the ground.**

“Awww, how romantic.” teases Frypan. Newt smacking him on the shoulder. 

**Newt turns to Thomas, “Hell of a first day greenie.”**

“Understatement of the century.” laughs Minho. 

**Thomas nods.**

**“Here, put some hair on yer’ chest.”**

**Newt hands Thomas a jar of golden liquid.**

“Is that what I think it is?” says Aris.

“Yep.” says frypan smugly. 

**Thomas takes a drink of the liquid and immediately chokes on it. He spits it out while groaning as Newt laughs at him.**

**“*cough* hoh- my god what is that?”**

“Had you ever even drunk liquor before that point?” Jorge asked Thomas, who shrugged.

“No, that was the first time alcohol had even touched his lips” Says Dr. Paige, earning her a few glares at her intimate knowledge of Thomas. 

**He continues coughing as Newt says,**

**“I don't even know, It's Gally’s recipe.”**

**He looks behind him at Gally, the boy from before, who is fighting with another glader.**

**“It’s a trade secret.”**

“Damn right it is, ain't no one ever gonna use it but me.” claims Gally.

**Thomas looks back as well and counters,**

**“Yeah well he’s still an asshole.”**

Snorts echo through the room.

**Newt looks at him reproachfully,**

**“He saved your life today…. Trust me, the Maze is a dangerous place.” He takes a sip of the strong liquor.**

**Thomas begins to talk,**

**“We’re trapped here?”**

**“For the moment… But,” Newt starts, turning to face behind him,“see those guys, there, by the fire,” he points to them. “Those’re the runners. That guy in the middle, that's Minho, He the keeper of the runners.”**

Minho looks smug at the appraising looks he receives from the others. 

**“Now every morning when those doors open, They run the Maze, mapping it, memorizing it, tryin’ to find a way out.”**

**“How long have they been looking?”**

**“Three years.”**

“They kept kids boxed in like that for three years?!” asked Vince, looking at Mary, who only nodded mournfully. 

**“..And they haven't found anything?”**

“That wasn't a very nice way of putting it.” Says Brenda.

**Newt shifts, “It's not easier said than done.” Newt begins incredulously,**

**“Listen..” A rumble sound can be heard in the background, like moving boulders.**

**“Hear that? That's the Maze, changing… changes every night.”**

“It changes every night?” someone asks.

Everyone who was trapped in a Maze nods. 

**“How is that even possible” Thomas murmurs.**

“Trust me Thomas, a lot of things are possible if you have enough money.” explains Jorge. 

**“You can ask the people who put us in here if you ever meet the bastards.” Newt smirks and turns away.**

Snickers bounce around the different groups, much to the displeasure of W.C.K.D.’s directors. 

**Thomas looks at his hands.**

**“Listen, the truth is, the runners are the only ones who really know what's out there. They’re the strongest and the fastest of us all, and it's a good thing too, cause if they don't make it back before those doors close, then they're stuck out there for the night.”**

**“And no one’s ever survived a night in the Maze.”**

**“** No one?” asks a fearful Vince. 

“No one, until..” “lets let em’ experience it without any spoilers.” interrupts Chuck.

**Thomas looks to Newt, a look of suspicion on his face,**

**“What happens to them?”**

**Newt takes another drink,**

**“Well we call em’ Grievers… course no ones ever.. seen one and lived to tell about it… but, they’re out there.”**

“That sounds terrifying.” someone murmurs

“It is.” respondes Newt.

**After a moment of silence, Newt begins to look uncomfortable, so he shifts to stand up and says,**

**“Right, well, that's enough questions for one night, come on. Listen, you’re supposed to be the guest of honor.”**

**“Oh, well I-”**

**“No! No no come on, lemme show you around!” Says Newt, sounding suspiciously intoxicated.**

“Are you drunk?” asks Aris, receiving a blush that answers the question by itself.

**“I- really don-” Thomas attempts,**

**“Come on!” Newt pulls the greenie up by his arm.**

**The scene shifts to show Gally throwing another glader to the ground.**

**Newt and Thomas are walking around the dirt pit as the senior glader tours the greenie around.**

**“Now over there we got the builders” Newt points to the said group. “Very good with their hands, but then not a lot going on upstairs.”**

Shouts of offence appear.

**“And then we got Winston, he’s the keeper of the slicers… And we got two Med-jacks, Clint, jeff.”**

**“Oh hey!” “sup.”**

**“They spend most o’ their time patching up the slicers.” Newt laughs.**

**Thomas, who has been silent so far, interjects, “What if I wanna be a runner?”**

“Of course he wanted to be a runner.” said Frypan exasperatedly.

**Newt laughs, “Have you listened to a word I just said? No one wants to be a runner, and besides, they all get chosen.”**

**“Get chosen by who?”**

**As Thomas’s Back was turned towards the fight, Gally suddenly threw the other glader, making him crash into the greenie.**

**Turning around after regaining his balance, Thomas looked to what had pushed him and saw that it was the fight.**

**Gally looks up at him, “what’d say grennie? Wanna see what you're made of?”**

**Thomas looks around, the other gladers are starting to form a circle around them.**

**Somewhere, a glader begins to chant, “Greenie greenie greenie.” And the rest start to join until everyone is chanting together.**

“This aint gonna go well” murmurs Aris. 

**You can see minho in the background looking at the group, as if he had seen this before.**

**Thomas looks reluctant to fight, until everyone starts yelling and screaming for the fight as they clap.**

**“Alright.**

**As Gally talks, him and Thomas start to circle the pit while watching each other.**

**“The rules are simple greenie. I try to push you outta the circle, you try and last more than five seconds.”**

“Never underestimate thomas dude.” says someone

**Laughter rings out among the gladers.**

**Thomas nods slightly.**

**“Ready?” says gally**

**Not even a second later, Gally rushes at Thomas and pushes his shoulders.**

**Thomas is thrown back into the gladers, who push him forward to continue fighting.**

“That looks way too rough.” comments Sonya. 

**As soon as Thomas is upright, Gally grabs him by his nape, and throws him down in the sand.**

**The greenie coughs, trying to get sand out of his mouth, then turns and looks to Gally, who stands behind him.**

**Along with Gally there are calls of “Come on greenie! We’re not done yet.”**

**Laughter and calls of encouragement are still coming from the circle.**

**“Stop calling me Greenie.” says Thomas, who sounds upset.**

“You better watch out, Thomas is angry.” teases Newt.

**Oooh’s ring out of the gladers.**

**“Stop calling you that? What do you want to be called? Shank?” responding laughter follows.**

Matching laughter comes from the gladers.

**Gally turns to the crowd, “What do you think boys? Does he look like a shank?”**

**After that sentence Thomas seems to be pushed over the edge as he rushes back at Gally and tries to push him out, only for the glader to stop him easily.**

**They continue to push at each other, until Gally finally throws Thomas to the ground and knocks the air out of him.**

“Who would've known that the brat could also lose.” says Janson sourly.

**Minho can be seen standing along with the others, he looks concerned on what the outcome might be.**

**“You know what? Think I've settled on Shank.”**

**Laughter rings out as Thomas tries to run at Gally and grab him around the middle, only to be overpowered by Gallys strength.**

Gally has a look of pride on his face for his display of power. 

**The glader pushes the greenie back while holding his waist, but, in a change of fate, Thomas turns to the left and pushes Gally to the ground using his trajectory.**

“Now he’s beginning to use his head.” Says Vince proudly. He had begun to see the glader as a son since they finally took down Wicked. 

**The camera shows a close up of gallys reaction, and you can see that he is surprised and annoyed.**

“Uh oh, this won't be good.” says Harriet.

**Yells of surprise appear at the unforeseen turn of events.**

**Minho looks visibly surprised, his eyebrows raiding up on his forehead.**

**Gallys expression changes to rage as thomas begin to speak behind him, “Not bad for a greenie huh-”**

**Thomas’s legs are swiped from beneath him as Gally turns to try and end the fight quickly out of embarrassment.**

“Oh now your just bein’ cheap.” complains Brenda. 

**Falling to the ground, Thomas’s head smacks onto the floor, leaving him groaning where he lays.**

**Gally is standing up looking smug at his defeat of the newbie, while adjusting his wrist covers.**

**Thomas suddenly opens his eyes, and has a look of realization on his face.**

“What happened?” asked Aris.

***panting* “T-Thomas.” he murmurs.**

“So  _ that's _ how you remembered?” asked Mary.

**Silence encompases the circle.**

**Thomas stands up quickly.**

**“Thomas. Thomas! Hey! Thomas!!**

“Hey,” Newt taps Thomas on the arm, “ya’ look cute when you're excited.” 

Thomas’s ears burn bright red causing those around him to snicker. 

**The gladers silently watch him as he gets excited and laughs.**

**“I remember my name! I’m thomas!” *pants***

**The gladers look surprised, and Chuck looks around.**

**Alby suddenly yells “THOMAS!” as he points to the newly renamed greenie. The rest of the gladers start screaming at him, yelling combinations of incoherent screams of thomas.**

**They all surround him with congratulations and slaps on the back.**

**“Welcome home thomas.” Says Frypan.**

“You guys are very supportive.” Thomas smirks.

**Thomas takes a drink of Gally’s liquor and continues to celebrate.**

**Gally approaches him, patting him in the arm, “Good job.. Thomas.**

**They’re holding each other's arms in a handshake when a loud screech echoes from within the maze.**

**“What the hell was that?” asks Thomas.**

**“That my friend… was a Griever. Don't worry, you’re safe here with us.” Gally respondes, as he turns back to look at Thomas.**

“...That's.. reassuring..” comments Brenda. 

**“Nothing gets through those walls.”**

**Alby takes up the conversation. “Alright guys, tuck it in for the night. Come on. It was a good night.”**

“Way to change the subject.” laughs Harriet.

**Murmurs of agreement come from the dispersing gladers with small compliments to Thomas.**

**Frypan comes up to Thomas and shakes his hand.**

**The greenie is left standing looking at the doors of the wall, still freaked out by the screech.**

**The segment is replaced with Chuck and Thomas, who are laying in their hammocks, which are next to each other.**

**Thomas lays awake, looking up, when a blue light takes over the screen.**

**Brief images pass: someone running, the door to the maze, an eye, seemingly looking at a computer, passing lights on a stone ceiling, and a wall of computers. A voice fills the void.**

**“Wicked is good.”**

**You can hear Thomas, as shadows of unknown people pass by, a layout of the maze is shown briefly among other images.**

“You remember before the maze?” asks Newt.

“Only bits and pieces.” respondes Thomas.

**“What's out there?”**

**People are calling his name as more people are shown, they’re young, and wearing white outfits, a child is shown in front of a screen with a woman leaning in behind him, teaching, then an older boy is seen before more unknown objects and pictures flash by, the face of a girl can briefly be seen. The open doors of the maze appear, before doctors appear, leaning above, as if they were testing something.**

**Murmurs of “can you hear me?” voice themselves, as a blonde woman can be seen talking to someone. The girl appears again, sitting in a room, surrounded by different machines, while her voice continues… “everything is going to change.”**

“Hey! It's Teresa! Why is she saying that?” asks Chuck

“You'll find out soon enough.” Thomas comments.

**Body scans, doctors, glass tubes filled with water, and children in front of screens flash continuously.**

“Now you finally know what Ben and I meant right?” asks Alby receiving a small nod.

**Thomas wakes abruptly, gasping.**

**He looks to his right when suddenly a hand covers his mouth.**

“Klunk, that scared me.” complains Chuck. 

**The camera turns up and the owner of the hand turns out to be Alby, who makes a shushing signal to Thomas, before removing his hand.**

**He motions to Thomas, “Follow me.”**

**Thomas is clearly surprised at Albys actions, but gets up and follows him anyway.**

**“It's peaceful isn’t it? I know it's hard to believe, but it wasn't always this way.”**

**The camera shows a knife in Albys hand as he walks across the field.**

**“We had dark days. We lost a lot of boys to fear… to panic.”**

The gladers have a moment of silence for those lost in the glade who were not present in the room.

**The two have stopped and are looking out at the shelters across the glade.**

**“But we've come far since then. We established order. Made peace.”**

**“Why are you telling me this?” asks thomas.**

**“Because you're not like the others... You’re curious.. But you’re one of us now. You need to know what that means.”**

**As Ably says this, he hands Thomas the knife he was carrying. And points to the stone wall behind them.**

**Thomas turns to look and see that the wall is covered in names. Some are old, some new, and some are scratched out.**

**“What happened to them?” Thomas asked, pointing to the scratched out names.**

**“Like I said… dark days Thomas.”**

Mary looks distraught, as she used to work in the place that sent these boys to their death. 

**The greenie stepped closer to the wall and began to carve his name in an empty spot.**

**The clip was replaced with a garden, with gladers harvesting, and tending to the vegetables.**

**Thomas is digging up some dirt as he asks about the Maze.**

**“Has anyone tried climbing to the top?”**

“Always asking questions Thomas.” Newt says 

**Newt, who's twisting some plants, answers “Tried it. The ivy doesn't go all the way to the top. And besides, where would you go from there?”**

**“Well what about the box? Ya know, next time it comes up you just-”**

“Like those shits hadn’t tried every little thing.” says Janson venomously.

**“Ya no, we tried that. The box won't go back down with somebody in it.”**

**“Kay, w-what if we-”**

**“No, we tried it! Alright! Twice!... Alright, trust me. Anything you can think of we’ve already tried. The only way out here is through the maze.”**

“Hey it's alright. I was just annoyed because I kept hearing the same things over and over again from greenies for three years, mate.” Newt explains to Thomas. 

**“Now look, you wanna be helpful?” Thomas nods slightly. And Newt Picks up a threaded basket and throws it to him.**

**“Go get some more fertilizer.”**

The room laughs at Thomas's expense.

**To be Continued...**


	4. A Griever's Sting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas finds out the effects of a Grievers sting, and what happens to those who get stung.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if there are any typos, I did this one quickly, and I hate re-reading my own work so comment if there are any noticeable mistakes, grammar, spelling, or otherwise.

Chapter 4

The room laughs at Thomas's expense.

**A nearby glader laughed at Thomas as he picked up a small shovel.**

**Thomas murmurs to himself as he walks deeper into the trees.**

***quietly* “Just get the fertilizer thomas.”**

**“Sure guys i can't help any other way… no just get the fertilizer *sigh* you know where it is, it's just out in the middle of the woods.”**

“You can be really salty sometimes can't you?” Newt says laughing 

**Thomas continues to walk deeper until eventually he sees a stream.**

**He drops the shovel and basket and walks over to the stream, where he then sees a jumble of sticks tied together in a fan shape.**

**As he walks closer to get a better look, he notices that he’s walking on top of piles of bones.**

**He finally gets to the other side of the stick bundle, and sees a sign that is tied onto it. The sign has the name George carved into the wood.**

The gladers who knew George looked down mournfully. Alby was shocked that Thomas had discovered the grave in the first place. 

**Thomas looked around where he was crouched at the grave, and noticed that there were human skeletons scattered around.**

**Thomas turned around to leave when he was startled by the appearance of Ben.**

**“Oh! Geez. uh- Ben right? i don't know if we ever uh-”**

**When Ben looked up, you could see huge bags under his eyes, his skin was deathly pale, and he was breathing heavily.**

Mary suddenly gasped. “What? What's wrong with him?” asked Vince.

**Thomas paused.. “Are you okay?”**

**Ben had started to shake where he was standing, and was making a weird grunting sound, like he was growling.**

**He suddenly lunged at Thomas, making the greenie fall onto his back, and climbed on top of him. He was trying to claw at thomas’s face, only being held back by said gladers hand at his wrists.**

The gladers winced, being attacked by someone who was stung was terrifying.

**“G-get off of me!”**

**Ben began speaking “It's your fault! I saw you. You did this! I SAW YOU!”**

**Ben dug his nails into Thomas's wrist, making him lose his grip. He then ripped his hand away, giving room for him to grip Thomas by the neck, effectively choking him.**

Gasps come from everyone who didn't understand what was happening.

**Thomas looks to the side and sees an animal skull lying in the leaves next to him.**

**He stumbles to grab the skull and hits Ben over the head with it.**

“Oh thank goodness” whispers Mary, only to turn and see Thomas shaking his head at her. 

**Thomas, knocking the boy off for a brief moment, managed to scramble up and start running from Ben.**

**They continue to run through the woods, while Thomas yells for help, until they reach a hill, where Ben finally catches up to the greenie, and grabs him by the waist.**

**The sudden stop causes Thomas to stumble, making both of the boys fall down the hill.**

“That looks like it hurt.” comments Newt

**The screen shows Newt, who’s still working, when he hears a sudden scream from the forest. He stands up and hears thomas.**

**“HELP!!”**

**Thomas is again up and running from Ben, continuing to scream for help, when he finally reaches the clearing teh the trees.**

“You look terrified!” says somebody. 

“I was at the time.” repondes Thomas, looking around and seeing the horrified looks on everybody's faces.

**The gladers hear Thomas and turn to see him being chased out of the woods.**

**He’s just made it into the field when Ben finally catches up to him and tackles him to the ground.**

**Newt can be seen grabbing something just as Ben gets on top of Thomas, continuing to yell.**

**“I’ll kill you!”**

**Ben looks up only to be hit in the head by Newt, who's holding a shovel.**

“Thanks by the way.” Thomas tells Newt. “no problem mate.”

**Gally and Newt run to hold down a wild Ben.**

**“Hold him down!”**

**“Calm down! Calm down Ben!”**

**Frypan runs over, “Yo what the hell happened?!”**

“Is he a crank?” questions Brenda, receiving head shakes,but no verbal explanation, leaving her with only more questions. 

**Thomas is panting, “He just attacked me!”**

**Chuck helps him up, “Hey you okay?” “yeah.”**

**Alby pushes through the crowd with a fearful look on his face.**

**Ben looks up at him, *pants* “n-no no!”**

**Alby interrupts him “Alright, lift his shirt”.**

**Ben continues to plead, “I didn’t mean it!”**

“What's under his shirt?” asks Teresa.

**“Lift his shirt.”**

**Ben's shirt is pulled up to reveal a puncture wound surrounded by darkened web like veins, his skin turning a dark purple color.**

Those who had escaped the mazes winced at the image. Griever stings were terrible. 

**The gladers immediately cry out. There are murmurs among the group.**

**Gally, looking at the wound in surprise and says, “He’s been stung.” He looks at Newt and Alby, “In the middle of the day?”**

“Stung by what?” asks Vince, extremely worried. 

**Thomas moves up front to look and see that Ben had begun to cry and plead for help.**

**Alby looks unwillingly resigned. “Put him in the pit. Come one, everybody help!”**

**At this order, Ben angers again and starts to try and get away. He continues to plead, while Gally and Newt try to get him to calm down as they move him to the pit.**

**Alby turns and walks away from the dispersing crowd.**

**It shows Thomas sitting between Chuck and Alby.**

**“So what happened to him?” he asks the older glader.**

**“It's called the changer. It's what happens when someone gets stung.” Alby shifts to sit closer to Thomas.**

“It makes them go crazy?” asked someone, receiving sad nods. 

**“Listen.. We haven't been able to get a clear word out of ben since it happened. You know how he’s not making sense, and it's only gonna get worse. The infection’s spreading.”**

**“What’d he say to you?”**

**Thomas swallowed, “u-um, h-he-he said he saw me. And that this is all my fault. How could this be my fault?”**

**Alby looked as if he was debating what the greenie said. “...Get some rest.” said the glader as he stood up and walked away.**

**“Wh- Alby!”**

**Alby turned to look at thomas,**

**“What's gonna happen to him?”**

**The scene changes to show all of the gladers standing in front of the wall doors with long sticks in their hands.**

**Ben is being escorted to them by Mino with his hand tied behind his neck, pulling his arms up. He continued to plead for everyone to listen, but his words fell on deaf ears.**

**Minho made him kneel as he cut the rope off of his arms. While everyone pointed their sticks to Ben, closing him in.**

Gasps of realization and horror encompassed the room.

**Thomas approached, standing next to Chuck, who looked disturbed at Ben's treatment.**

**Minho was holding a sack of water at the entrance to the Maze while Ben continued to beg for them to stop. The leader of the runners looked to alby for affirmation, then threw the water pouch into the maze.**

**In the background you can hear the shone shifting, slowly pushing the wall doors closer together.**

**Just as a gust of wind blew out of the maze, Alby called on the gladers**

**“Poles!”**

**Chuck is seen turning around, not willing to watch a fellow glader be sentenced to death within the maze.**

“I wouldn’t be able to watch that either” said Sonya 

**Following Alby’s order, they slowly pushed the poles closer in, pushing Ben into the opening. Thomas watched horrified as the glader screamed for mercy while the doors closed on him.**

**The gladers stood there for a second, having a moment of silence for Ben, before Alby turned to thomas and said,**

**“He belongs to the Maze now.”**

**After the declaration, everyone began to go their separate way in silence.**

**Thomas turned back to look as the image faded, and chipping sounds could be heard the screen showing Gally, who was marking a line through Ben’s name.**

**Chuck and thomas are sitting in their bunks when the greenie asks,**

**“You think he might make it?”**

**“Yeah.. no. No one survives a night in the maze. You just gotta forget about him.”**

**Thomas looks to see Alby sitting, seemingly looking at nothing.**

**…**

**A flash of light changes to show the view of the box rising to the glade, the lights flickering when it changes, to a darkening hallways filled with pipes, before a girl appears, she’s shown looking across a screen while her voice echoes in the back, calling thomas as the images from before reappear right as the blonde lady is seen walking down a control room, with her saying,**

**“Wicked is good.”**

**“Don’t make it easy on them.”**

**The girl return repeating what she had said before,**

**“Thomas… everythings going to change.”**

**As she disappears, a boy within a water filled tube screams, and the view is reversed, to show doctors on the outside watching thomas. The boy is shown again, he’s pounding on the glass as thomas reiterates,**

“Wait a second,” says Brenda, “is that Alby?” receiving a nod from both Thomas and the mentioned glader. 

**“Wicked is good.”**

**Rushing water is seen, then a blinding light is blocked to reveal surgeons hovering over Thomas with flashes of surgical tools.**

“This is so creepy thomas.” mutters Aris.

**The screen shows Thomas on a metal table, doctors poking and prodding at him, before it shows the girl in a similar state. The angle changes to show their arms reaching out for each other across the gap.**

**Whispers in the background repeat the same sentence,**

**“Wicked is good.”**

**The woman’s voice returns, talking to Thomas as images of the girl, doctors, and thomas waking up in the box quickly pass by,**

**“Thomas, you have to choose.”**

“Dude , you never told us you remembered this much!” said Frypan, who seemed to be surprised at the amount of memories that Thomas dreamed of. 

**…**

**Thomas wakes abruptly, almost falling out of his bunk.**

**In the background you can hear moving stone, and Thomas turns to see the maze doors opening.**

**Minho, Alby, and Newt, are standing outside the doors. They seem to be talking before Newt backs up and waves, as Minho and Alby run into the opening.**

**Later, Thomas is sitting on a log next to Chuck, who seems to be whittling something, while Newt and another glader chop down one of the trees.**

**“But why would Alby go in the maze? I mean, he’s not a- he’s not a runner.” Thomas asks.**

**“Things are different now.” repondes Newt. “Alby went to retrace Bens footsteps before sundown- Are ye’ gonna help?!”**

**“Is-okay, so he’s gonna go** **_back_ ** **to where Ben was just stung?-”**

**“Alby knows what he’s doing, alright. Knows betta’ than any of us.”**

**Thomas stuck the blade he was holding into the log.**

**“What does that mean?”**

“You really can’t stop asking questions can you?” asked Mary, looking at Thomas warmly.

**Newt stopped chopping, looking slightly annoyed,**

**“...Alright, it's like you’ve heard yeah? Every month, the box sends up a new arrival, but someone had to be** **_first,_ ** **alright. Someone had to spend a whole month in the glade** **_alone_ ** **. N’ that was Alby.”**

“So that’s why he’s the leader?” asked Jorge. 

Thomas and the rest of the gladers nodded.

**“I mean it can't ve’ been easy. When those other boys started comin’ up, one after the otha’, he saw the truth, and he learned that the most important thing is that we all have each other. Cause we’re all in this togetha’.”**

**Thomas shared a look with Chuck, who shrugged and continued carving.**

**To be continued…** ****


	5. The Maze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas experiences The Maze for the first time since he appeared in the glade.

Chapter 5

  
  


**Thomas stood up from the log and walked over. Sharing a brief look with Newt, he crouched down and began chopping at the roots.**

**“Yeah. There you go greenie!” said Newt happily.**

“You guys are so cute.” whispered Teresa into Thomas’s ear.

The greenie’s ears turned a bright red, earning him a few looks from those around him. 

**He continued chopping, until a rumble sound came from above, and Thomas looked up to see clouds rolling in.**

**As everyone was going in, it began to rain, drops falling into the river.**

**The screen showed everyone sheltered under a canopy as it continued to pour. Thomas was hanging onto a support pole as he said,**

**“They should be back by now… What happens if they don't make it?” he turned to look at Newt.**

**“They’re gonna make it.” Newt says without looking at Thomas.**

**The greenie walked back to where the glader was leaning on a wood pole,**

**“What happens if they don’t?”**

**Newt turns to him,**

**“They’re gonna make it.” Newt sounded as if he was trying to convince himself, rather than Thomas.**

“You don’t sound completely confident with your answer.” says Aris nervously.

**Later, when the rain had stopped, leaving the glade damp a gloomy, The gladers were standing at the entrance of the maze waiting for Minho and Alby to return.**

**Chuck was looking impatiently at the opening.**

**Thomas was quickly fed up.**

**“Come on guys, can we send someone after them?”**

**“That against the rules.” Said Gally, who was crouching at Thomas's left.**

**“Either they make it back or they don’t.”**

**Newt turns to the greenie, “Can't risk losing anyone else.”**

**A monstrous roar comes from deep within the maze, followed by a strong gust of wind as the doors begin to close.**

**Chuck moves his arm from where he was shielding his face “o-oh no.”**

**There’s a grunt from inside,**

**“There!” says Thomas, pointing to something coming from around a corner.**

**“Wait no something’s wrong!” says Newt looking deeper.**

**In the shadows you can see what looks to be Minho carrying Alby on his back.**

“What happened to him?” asked Brenda.

**Chuck yells “come on Minho you can do it!”**

**More yells of encouragement come from the gladers, still standing outside, as to not risk anyone else.**

**Minho tries to drag Alby by his arms to the exit.**

**Gally shouts as the doors grow closer every second,**

**“ Minho, you gotta leave him!”**

“Nah minho‘s too good for that.” says Brenda, high fiving said runner. 

**“They’re not gonna make it.” Newt tells Thomas.**

**As everyone continues yelling at Minho to leave Alby and run, Thomas looks back and forth at Newt and Minho, still struggling with Alby.**

“Dude you can literally see you trying to decide.” laughs Frypan. 

**Minho, trying to drag Alby by the ankles, is screaming, trying to go faster.**

**The tape slows down, showing everyone yelling in slow motion as Thomas watches Minho struggle.**

**Suddenly, Thomas runs forward, dodging the arms trying to grab him, and sprints through just as the doors are closing.**

**As the footage speeds up again, calls to thomas for him to stop, come from Chuck and Newt as it shows the greenie squeezing through the doors to Minho.**

**Thomas falls through the doors onto the floor of the maze and turns around and starts to back up, panicking slightly at what he just did.**

**Turning around, he sees Minho sitting up on his knees looking at him.**

**“Good job.”**

“Good job? Isn’t that against the rules?” asked Sonya.

**“You just killed yourself.”**

“Oh.” she squeaked out blushing from embarrassment. 

**“W-w-What?” Thomas asked.**

**Minho sat down off his knees while panting.**

**Thomas got up and walked past Minho to Alby, who was still unconscious.**

**“What happened to him?”**

**“What's it look like?” asked minho angrily. “He got** **_stung._ ** **”**

“Doesn’t that mean that Alby’s going to go crazy?” asked Vince, only receiving a shrug in return.

**“What happened to his head?”**

**“..I did what I had to do.”**

**A screech rang out down the maze.**

**Minho got up grunting with pain and exhaustion.**

**Thomas awkwardly started moving, never having been in the maze before.**

**“Uh- okay- alright, help me get him up.”**

**Minho started to stumble away.**

**“We gotta go, the maze is already changing”**

“You risk your life to save him, but as soon as danger comes, you’ll leave him for dead?” asked Brenda incredulously

**Thomas looked up angrily.**

**“Hey, Minho!”**

**Minho stopped.**

**“We can't just leave him here.”**

**The runner slowly turned around and looked at Thomas hovering over Alby.**

**The scene suddenly changes to another part of the maze, the last lights of sunset shining through. You can hear Minho and Thomas grunting, and the camera slowly angles down to show them holding Alby between themselves, each holding one of his arms and legs.**

“Your resolve is weak. You could’ve left in there and escaped while you were able to, but instead you wanted to be a stupid little hero, and save the day.” Criticized Janson

Thomas and Newt sent him twin glares as the blonde began, “Minho used his morals, he wouldn’t just leave Alby there,  _ that's _ why he tried to save em’ in the first place after he got stung, even though Alby would’ve been sent back eventually.” 

**They’re walking quickly down the corridor, before stopping and placing him down against one of the walls.**

**A whistle rings down the corridor.**

**“This isn’t gonna work.” says Minho, starting to leave. “We gotta go. We gotta go!”**

**“”What? W-w-what wait are you talking about? We gotta do something. We gotta hide him’”**

**“Where?” asks minho impatiently**

**“I don't know! Minho, just think. You’re telling me there’s not a single place we can take him?”**

“I think if he knew one, he would’ve already taken you there.” says Frypan

**Minho, in a fit of rage, stomps his foot then grabs Thomas and shoves him against the wall.**

**“Listen to me shuk face, take a look around! There’s nowhere to go!”**

**He lets go of Thomas and backs up, still panting. He looks at thomas angrily**

**“You don't get it. *pants* We’re already dead.”**

**Thomas looks at him, until he sees something behind him and pushes past Minho to look at the wall of the corridor in front of them.**

**The whole wall is covered in thick ivy. Thomas looks at it for a couple seconds, before a look of realization takes over his face. He turns back to Minho, who’s looking at him like he’s crazy.**

**The view changes to Alby being pulled up by ivy vines around his waist.**

**The angle moves to show Thomas and Minho pulling him up with another vine down on the ground. They’re grunting with exertion and continue pulling until he’s high above the floor.**

“You can have the best ideas sometimes thomas!” compliments Vince, smiling at said boy. 

“First the train, now the vines, damn, I wish I had the brains to think that up.”

**They’re about to pull again, when a growl comes down the corridor next to the wall. Minho looks around the wall to see that down the hallway, another wall is separating, making an opening.**

**“We gotta go. We gotta go we gotta go-”**

**“No! No no no no n- we almost got him tied off.”**

**The Growling grows louder, eventually accompanied by the sound of metal legs hitting the stone floor.**

**Thomas continues pulling the vine, “just a little more we’re almost there-”**

**A screeching sound echoes off the walls, and Minho let's go of the vine and runs down the corridor, causing Thomas to slide forward against the wall, trying to keep Alby up in the vines.**

“You just left him there?!” asked Mary, concerned for Thomas. 

**Thomas, still holding onto the vine hears the Griever coming closer. With nowhere else to go, Thomas takes a strong grip on the ivy, and slides underneath the overgrow against the wall.**

“You are so lucky that there was enough room.” said Brenda.

**Gripping tight onto the makeshift rope, Thomas lays underneath the ivy, panting, when robotic metal legs start to crawl past him.**

**Their legs are like that of a spider, but made a deadly metal that can pierce a grown man’s heart.**

**When it seemed the Griever crawled away from the corridor, Thomas started to shift around. He looked up into the underbrush, and saw a sturdy twist of Ivy that he could tie the vine to.**

**He quickly grabbed onto it, and swung himself out of the overgrow to tie the two vines together as fast as he could. He was pulling the ivy to adjust the knot when a growl came from down where the Griever disappeared to.**

**“*panting* come on-!”**

“Thank you for doing that Thomas. It allowed me more time than I could ask for.” said Alby. 

**As soon as Thomas fully secured the vine, he pulled himself up and rounded the corner. From where he was standing, the greenie could hear the breaths of the Griever as it walked past the intersecting corridors.**

**When the hitting of metal against hard stone faded, he turned his head around to look, and when nothing appeared, he walked off the wall, back into the open hallway.**

**The greenie looked up at Alby, still suspended by the vines. He turned when the rumble of moving stone came from behind him, followed closely by a monstrous scream.**

**He quickly started walking down towards another corner as he looked around, trying to find a place to run.**

**A squelching sound came from below. Thomas looked down to see that he had stepped in some form of goo.**

“Gross.” whispered Teresa.

**The glader lifted his foot, and tried to shake off the slime as he looked around to see what put it there.**

**The camera starts to angle upwards showing metal legs hooked onto the upper wall, holding up the body of a Griever. As the monster started to silently crawl down the walls, it made a sort of purring noise.**

“That looks terrifying.” someone muttered. 

**Thomas, unaware of the danger above, continued to look around.**

**As he stood there, drool had dripped stickily on his shoulder.**

“EW!” said Frypan, “Now that's just disgusting.”

**Thomas slowly turned around, and came face to face with a Griever.**

**Screaming out, Thomas fell down onto the floor, desperately trying to crawl back as the horrifying beast roared at him.**

**The Griever was a bulbous, dark creature, with many appendages sticking out of its stomach. A huge scorpion-like tail whipped behind it as it chased Thomas down the corridor.**

“That’s what a Griever looks like?!” asked Vince.

The kids included in the Maze Trials nod. 

**Frantically stumbling around a corner, Thomas sprinted through the maze, trying to evade the horrific death that would follow at being caught by the Griever.**

**Just as he turned to run down the new hallways, the monster cut him off, forcing him to turn deeper into the maze.**

“Hermano, if you can outrun a Griever, you must be one hell of a runner!” called Jorge. 

**He entered a new intersection and turned to look for a way out of the maze, when he realized he had run into a deep end.**

**“Ah shit!”**

“Ah shit indeed, brat.” laughed Janson.

Minho turned to look at Ratman with a dirty look on his face. Minho knew the Maze by heart, and learning that, he had to see every dead end where other gladers got cornered by the monsters, leading to their deaths. 

**Before he could correct his mistake, he was closed in by the Griever that jumped at him.**

**Thomas ran into the closest hallway next to him and jumped from the side wall, using it to boost him up to the ivy growing on the dead end.**

“You did that with no prior training at all?” asked Harriet, impressed. 

**The greenie scrambled his way up the vines as the Griever bit at his ankles, before rolling over the top, narrowly dodging a leg to the middle.**

**He continued running, jumping over a gap in between two separate walls. Thomas hit the ground hard, sliding into the wall ahead, before quickly jumping up to a higher level and bolting through a small hallway, only to almost fall over the edge.**

“Imagined I fell there, completely ruining all your chances of ever finding the cure.” siad Thomas hotly looking at Wicked’s directors. “You would’ve all continued killing kids, never able to find a cure that lasts.” 

“We would’ve found something eventually.” Says Dr. Paige desperately.

“No! Those mazes killed immunes like bugs. Even if there  _ was _ some other person with blood like mine, they probably would’ve already died, before anyone could’ve been saved. Your plan was deeply flawed, and you sacrificed the lives of innocent kids for your own safety.”

Dr. Paige looked ashamed at this declaration, while Janson just looked like the information was nothing new. 

**He attempted to turn back, but the Griever was already crawling through the hallway, before pausing at the entrance, and roaring ferociously.**

**Thomas quickly turned around as another roar echoed behind him.**

**Without a second look, Thomas jumped over the gap, screaming his head off.**

**Across from the edge, Thomas grabbed onto the ivy vines covering the wall.**

“You’re incredibly lucky that those didn’t break.” said Frypan. 

“I know.” said Thomas.

**Falling slightly, he turned his head over his shoulder just as the Griever jumped over the gap, latching onto the wall around thomas.**

**The monster regained its balance and raised its metal leg, revealing a needle-like stinger, trying to stab it into Thomas’s back.**

**Barely avoiding the leg, Thomas loses his grip on the ivy, making him fall lower beneath the Griever. The beast quickly tries to turn and attack the glader once again, but ends up tilting itself sideways, tangling its legs in the ivy, falling to the ground, pulling Thomas with it.**

“Ouch. that must’ve hurt.” said Newt. 

**Thomas screams as he falls, before he hits the ground, quickly untangling himself, and runs.**

**To be continued...**


	6. A dead Griever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas and Minho play cat and mouse with a griever, but what happens when they finally make it out?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates might be more sparse as my school year just started. Sorry :/ Comment about any noticeable typos or inaccuracies I didn't notice.

Chapter 6

**Thomas ran down the corridor, turning to look as he walked backwards into another hallway.**

**He was slowly coming to a stop, when abruptly, Minho, appearing from the corridor to his left, grabbed his arm, scaring the greenie.**

“You could’ve called his name first and not scared the dude.” laughed Frypan

**“UH- crazy son of a bitch!” said thomas.**

More laughs encompass the theater.

**They turned towards the Griever, which was starting to untangle itself from the vines.**

**“Come on, follow me!”**

**The gladers ran down a long hallway as monstrous screams came from the Griever.**

**A rumbling sound echoed through the maze.**

**“Okay, it's changing. It's changing! Come on c’mon c’mon c’mon c’mon!”**

**They stopped at a corner, “This section's closing! Come on! We can lose it down here!”**

**Minho ran ahead as the hallway started to push closer together.**

**Thomas stopped, watching the walls move, he backed into the rapidly decreasing space of the corridor.**

“What’re you doing?!” asked Mary.

**“THOMAS!” yelled Minho, who was already at the next corner. “WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?! GET OUTTA THERE!”**

**Thomas turns at the screech of a Griever. He can see it, its metal legs pounding down on the pavement.**

**The monster stops for a moment, standing behind the closing walls.**

**Thomas looks at it, “COME ON!” he antagonizes the Griever.**

“You must have a death wish.” says Harriet.

**After hearing the taunt, the beast roars ragefully, and starts to run after the glader.**

**Thomas sprints down the rapidly decreasing corridor as Minho yells at him.**

**“COME ON THOMAS! DON'T LOOK BACK! RUN!”**

**Despite the yells, Thomas continues to repeatedly look back at his chaser.**

“You never look behind, it slows you down. What’s behind you could be the last thing you see, ever.” lectured Gally.

“Yeah I know that now.” said Thomas annoyed. 

**“MOVE IT THOMAS! COME ON! MOVE YOUR ASS! LET'S GO C'MON! COME ON GREENIE LETS GO!”**

**Thomas is sprinting at full speed through the corridor. The walls are quickly closing in on his shoulders, making him run sideways.**

**“THOMAS!”**

**The screen turns black.**

**You can hear the sound of shifting stone, and the black changes to show the opening maze doors, Chuck standing in front of them.**

**“Guys! Get up!”**

“You guys waited outside all night?” asked thomas.

“Well, you can't expect we would give up all hope, cause Minho is an experienced runner, and you seemed pretty capable.” explained Newt. 

**The other gladers get off the ground nearby the opening. Everyone gathers around the doors as they slowly open.**

**Newt stands next to chuck, seeing nothing right away, “told’ you chuck, they’re not comin’ back.”**

“If you really believed that hermano, you wouldn’t be standing there.” Said Jorge.

Newt blushes. 

**Chuck sighs, and everyone starts to leave.**

**A Glader turns back, and stops for a moment. He seems to see something inside the maze.**

**“No way.”**

**Chuck ‘s face lights up, “Yehah!”**

“You seem happy.” Brenda teases Chuck, who blushes cutely.

**The other gladers turn around at his yell.**

**“Yes!”**

**Thomas and Minho are seen holding Alby around his arms, walking towards the exit.**

**“Yehah! Yeah!”**

**The other gladers run up and start cheering. Minho and Thomas drag Alby up to the group.**

**“I got him. I got him, I got him.”**

**Frypan holds alby up from the ground, “what happened out there?”The med-jacks arrive, “How’d you guys make it out?”**

**Chuck looks up at Thomas, “You saw a Griever?” everyone goes silent.**

**Thomas nods, “*pants* Yeah I saw one.”**

Brenda snorts, “understatement.”

**Minho shakes his head, “He didn’t just see one. He** **_killed_ ** **it.”**

**The gladers look at Thomas, shocked.**

**The scene changes to outside of a shelter, you can hear yelling going on inside.**

**Gally stands in front of the room. He starts,**

**“Everything is changing. There’s no denying that.”**

**Mixed agreements come from the gladers.**

**“First Ben gets stung in broad daylight. And then Alby. And now our greenie here has taken it upon himself, to go into the maze.”**

**Thomas sits behind him on a crate.**

**“Which is a clear violation of our rules here.”**

**Frypan interjects, “Yeah, but he saved Alby’s life.”**

**“Did he?”**

“Yeah. He did. Asshole.” says Brenda annoyed.

**Gally pauses, “For three years, we have coexisted with these things… and now,” he turns to thomas. “You’ve killed one of ‘em. Who knows what that could mean for us?”**

“Co-existed? You guys are just running from it. That's not ‘co’ anything.” says Vince. 

**Newt, who’s standing next to him asks, “Well what do ye’ suggest we do?”**

**Gally raises his arms in a sweeping motion. “He has to be punished.”**

“You’re kidding me right? He needs to be punished for saving someone's life?” Harriet asks, angry at Gally’s ridiculousness. 

**Oppositions break out in the crowd, and Thomas rolls his eyes, visibly frustrated.**

**The gladers yell out “Come on! He killed a griever!”**

**Newt tilts to look over Gally towards where Minho is sitting.**

**“Minho.”**

**The gladers quiet at Newt's voice.**

**“ You were there with him, what do you think?”**

**Minho sighs, “I think.. In all the time we’ve been here.. No one’s** **_ever_ ** **killed a Griever before. When I turned tail and ran… This dumb shank, stayed behind to help Alby.”**

**“Look I don't know if he’s** **_brave_ ** **.. Or** **_stupid…_ ** **whatever it is, we need more of it. I say we make a runner.”**

**Incredulous yells break out, “A runner? What?”**

**Thomas looks up at the glader as frypan yells over,**

**“Minho, let's not jump the gun here, alright?”**

**Chuck starts to chant Thomas’s name, looking around to get people to join, but not succeeding.**

“Thanks for the encouragement chuck.” Thomas says, giving the glader a side hug. 

**Gally shouts over the arguments, “If you wanna throw the newbie a parade, that fine. Go ahead. But if there is one thing that I know about the maze, it is that you do not-”**

**He stops at an enormous beeping sound. Sharing a look with Newt, he rushes out of the building along with everyone else.**

**Thomas steps outside next to chuck,**

**“Oh-Okay w-wait I know that sound.” Minho comes up behind them.**

**“The Box, it’s coming back up.” says Chuck.**

**“It shouldn’t be.” Minho said as he started running towards it.**

**Newt and Gally are the first to reach it as it opens. They lift up the gates and Newt jumps inside.**

**“Newt what’d ya’ see?” asks Frypan from above the box.**

**Newt stands up, “It's a girl.” he says confused.**

Teresa shakes her head, she totally freaked out back then, waking up surrounded by strange boys. 

**Murmurs of astonishment bounce around the group as Thomas pushes to the front.**

**The greenie looks down into the box, and sees a girl with brown hair, wearing a white jacket and blue jeans, with a note scrunched in her hand.**

**“I think she’s dead.” says Newt.**

“You thought I was dead?” Teresa asks, receiving a stiff nod in return. Newt hadn’t completely forgiven her for ratting out the Right Arm’s location. 

**“What's in her hand?” gally asks.**

**Newt bends down, and gently takes the scrap of paper from the girls hand and opens it.**

**“She’s the last one… ever. What the hell does that mean?”**

“Ever?” asked Sonya, confused.

**The girl abruptly takes a gasp of air, startling the gladers.**

**“*gasping* T-thomas.” she horses out, before losing consciousness again.**

**All of the gladers look up at Thomas, who looks confused on why she said his name.**

**He made eye contact with Gally, who looked to the groups and said,**

**“Still think I’m overreacting?”**

**Newt, Minho, and Thomas ducked into the infirmary. They passed by a series of beds lined in rows. Thomas turned to see Alby tied to a bed in the corner, panting and grunting with pain.**

**They approached the back room, separated by a sheet of cloth.**

**“Jeff.. What's going on? What's the matta’ with her? Why won’t she wake up?”**

**“Hey man, I got my job the same way you did.” replied Jeff, evidently not knowing what was wrong with the unknown girl.**

Laughter fills the theater. 

**Thomas stared at her with a deep look on his face. Newt turned to him, “Do you recognize her?” he asked, seeing thoma’s expression.**

**Thomas shook his head, “..no.”**

“Yeah, right.” chuckled Winston. 

**“Really? Cause she seemed to recognize you.” Newt asked skeptically.**

**“What about the note?” asked Thomas.**

**“We'll worry about the note later.” Newt said.**

**Thomas continues, “I think you should worry about it now.”**

**“We’ve got enough to deal with at the moment.”**

**“He’s right Newt.” speaks up Jeff. They turn to him.**

**“The Box isn't coming back up. How long do you think we can last?”**

“That's true. You guys should be worrying about the bond, not teresa.” said Mary. 

**Newt shook his head nervously, “No one said that.” he replied quickly. “Lets not jump to any conclusions. We just-... we’ll just wait until she wakes up and see what she knows. somebody's got t’have some answers ‘round here.”**

“You just don’t want to think about it. It's not good to sit in denial.” said Gally, looking at Newt reproachfully. 

Newt sticks his tongue out at him. 

**Thomas looks back and forth at Newt and Minho. “Okay.” he turns around and starts walking out of the infirmary.**

**“Where are you going?” asks Newt.**

**“Back into the maze.” the greenie mutters.**

“Dude you’ve been in the maze  _ one  _ time. You won’t find anything that Minho doesn't already know about.” said Gally.

**Shocked, the two gladers look at each other, before Minho runs to catch up to thomas.**

**“Hey! Hey thomas! Hey hey!” Minho jogs in front of Thomas, putting a hand on his chest to stop him.**

**“What is this with you huh? Death wish? You just got out, now you want back in?”**

“He said it, man. Why can't you be patient sometimes.” grins Frypan. 

**Thomas sighs, “You said that no ones ever seen a griever, and lived to tell about it right?” minho nods, a concerned look on his face. “Now we** **_have_ ** **one. You’re telling me you're not even a little bit curious?”**

“Smart, hermano.” compliments Jorge. 

**“Not really, no.”**

“Like any  _ normal  _ person.” comments Winston, shuddering at the memories of the Grievers. 

**Thomas looks at him, then tries to walk around him towards the maze. Minho stops him again, looking back to see if anyone was listening.**

**“So what's the plan? You‘re gonna go out and dissect that thing all by yourself?”**

**“ I will if I have to. Have the other runners left yet?”**

**Minho looks at him, “The other runners quit this morning.” turning to see said gladers standing in a group. He sighs. “After Alby got stung, they’re not in any hurry to get back out there. Why are you?”**

“Yeah, WHY are you? Thomas, you almost got killed by that thing, and you're already in a rush to go back and look at it?” Asked Brenda incredulously.

**Thomas bites his lip, motioning towards the maze with his head as he says, “I- I think it's time we found out what we’re really up against.”**

**Minho looks at him carefully, “Alright.” he says, “you’re not going back out there alone. Meet me in the woods in half an hour.”**

**Thomas nods, and as Minho walks away, the greenie looks at the group of now ex-runners, where he can see Gally talking to them.**

**The view shifts to show Thomas, leaning against the wall of an abandoned shelter within the woods.**

**He rubs his hands together, looking around for a sign of Minho.**

**He pushes off the wall, picking at his right hand as the leader of the runners rounds the corner behind him.**

**As he keeps walking, Thomas can see that he has brought company. Behind him are three other gladers each holding a weapon of some sorts.**

**Thomas slightly looks to Minho and nods, “Okay. Lets go.”**

“Already growing into your leader role is seee.” Newt teases Thomas, who denies him weakly while his ears burn. 

**The camera angle shifts to show the group running into the maze, passing corridors, following minho deeper into the intricate passageways.**

**“Come one!”**

**The slow just before passing an opening, where minho turns, and the angle moves back to where metal legs look to be poking outside of the wall.**

**They walk up to it, close enough where they could see the guts and blood of the griever dripping out of the wall.**

**“That's disgusting.”one of the gladers says.**

**Thoms looks closer, “Hey there’s somethin’ in there.”**

**“You mean beside a griever pancake?” questions Frypan, severely grossed out.**

**A weird humming sound starts to come out of the gap. Minho approaches it unhesitantly.**

**“Woah woah woah, what’re you doing?” Thomas says surprised.**

**Minho looks back at him, giving him a look that screams ‘shut up’ and reaches his arm inside the wall, fumbling around for the source of the noise.**

“We never had to do anything like that. That's disgusting.” says Sonya, deeply disturbed. 

**The gladers watch nervously as Minho continues to stick his arm inside. The runner looks inside, trying to find some sort of direction, when one of it’s legs suddenly moves. The gladers scream and Minho immediately pulls his arm out, backing away from the corpse.**

Laughs break out at the boys reaction.

**“I thought you said it was dead.” Frypan says, a scared tone in his voice.**

**Another glader looks at them, “what is it, reflex?”**

**“You hope!” says Winston, freaked out.**

**Thomas looks at the squished greiver, searching for any kind out movement. “Okay let's try and pull it out.” he says, moving forward and gripping onto it’s leg.**

**“Everyone get a hand on it. Come on.” they all grab the leg. “On three. One, two, three!”**

**They pull relentlessly at the metal appendage, grunting with exertion. It eventually rips off the body, making the gladers trip.**

**“You okay fry?” Thomas reaches out a hand, helping the cook up off the maze floor.**

“How nice.” Janson says condescendly. 

**Minho walks to the end of the leg, before picking up a piece of the griever, where a metal object can be seen sticking out of the bottom, emitting a beeping sound.**

**Minho grabs the object, and pulls it out of the griever piece, slime dripping everywhere, coating his hands and the ground below him, earning a few groans from the present galders.**

**“What the hell is that?” asks thomas.**

**Minho spins it in his hand, where he sees a panel, showing the number seven.**

**“Interesting.” the runner comments absentmindedly.**

“Yeah, interesting for a mysterious object found in the body of a man-eating monster.” Aris says airly.

**Underneath the number, a label can be seen, it reads, ‘W.C.K.D.: 9643021.’**

**To be continued...**


	7. Teresa Awakens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gally's bossy, Minho shows Thomas a secret, and Teresa wakes up. :/

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay second chapter in one day! whew. Leave a kudos if like my work!

Chapter 7

“Do you guys have to label everything? Or is that a tactic to make sure the gladers know who put them there?” Brenda asked Dr. Paige, a judgemental look on her face. 

Receiving no answer, she sighs and turns back to look at the screen, annoyed at the director. 

**Frypan grows restless, “Ok, whatever it is.. Can we take this up back at the glade? Cause I dont wanna meet this guy's friends.”**

**Minho looks up, “He’s right. It's getting late. Come on.”**

**They pick up their weapons and start jogging back to the glade, device in tow.**

**“The scene changes to inside the shelter from before, Newt seems to be holding the device, scrutinizing the numbers.**

**“Yeah, we found this. It was inside a griever.” thomas explains.**

**“It's the same letters we get on our supplies.”**

**“Yeah. Whoever put us here obviously made the grievers.” The greenie says impatiently.**

**“Now, this is the first** **_real_ ** **clue. The first** **_anything_ ** **you found in over three years right Minho?”**

“You’re making it sound as if they're incompitent, hermano. Be a little bit more gentle.” says Jorge.

Thomas blushes. He didn’t realize at the time that it sounded so rude.

**He receives a small conformation from the runner, “right.”**

**“Newt. We gotta go back out there. Who knows where this might lead us.”**

**Newt looks at him, then turns to exchange a glance with Gally, who looks upset.**

**“You see what he’s trying to do right? First he** **_breaks_ ** **our rules, then he tries to convince us to abandon them totally? What- the rules are the only thing that have** **_ever_ ** **held us together. Why now are we questioning them?”**

“Because Thomas broke the norm. He presented a new variable that wasn’t included in the rules. If there is viable change, then the rules need to conform to fit that shift. You guys never expected to be able to kill a griever, so you never prepared for it.” explained Mary wisely. 

**“If alby was here you know he’d agree with me.”**

“That was a low blow.” muttered Harriet.

**“This shank.. needs to be punished.”**

“You’re just angry cause he got farther than you ever did.” Said Vince.

“He challenged your authority, so you acted out with the need to have him punished. You wanted to exert dominance over the one member not falling in line.” said Sonya, receiving a few surprised looks over her statement.

Gally’s cheeks burn with embarrassment from the lectures. 

**Newt, looking up after being silent during Gallys outburst as Thomas looks at him imploringly. He hands the device back to Minho with a stern expression.**

**“You’re right. Thomas broke the rules.” Gally nods in absolute agreement.**

**“One night in the pit an’ no food.”**

“You always went easy on him.” muttered gally saltily.

**Gally swivels his head towards him, “Oh, come on Newt! One night in the pit? Yo-you think that's going to stop him from going into the maze!?”**

“I don't think anything would be able to stop him.” laughed Frypan.

**“No.” Newt says shortly. He stars again.”And we can't just have non-runners, running into the maze whenever they feel like it!”**

**Gally crosses his arms, looking expectantly at Newt.**

**“So let's just make this official. Starting from tomorrow, you’re a runner.”**

**Thomas has a surprised expression, before calming and looks back at the second in command determinedly.**

**Minho nods, approving of Newt's decision.**

**Gally shakes his head, looking at the gathered gladers with an openly surprised look on his face. “Wow.”**

**He starts for the door.”Gally-” Frypan reaches for his arm, only to get pushed away. “No.”**

**Gally storms out of the building, Frypan at his heels.**

**The other gladers exit along them, leaving Newt, Thomas, and Minho standing there.**

**“Thanks Newt.”**

**Said glader pauses for a moment, before looking at them, and walks away.**

**Thomas and Minho are shown trekking through the forest.**

**“Hey where are we going?”**

**“You’ll see.”**

**They eventually arrive at a house built deep into a crowd of trees, seemingly abandoned. They enter through a swinging door, and walk into a circular room filled with different tools and equipment. Hanging on the wall are wooden boards, with apparently random numbers carved.**

**Thomas looks around before stopping at a table like shape covered in a cloth.**

**Minho pulls the cloth off to reveal what seems to be a model of the maze.**

“Wait- you had a map of the maze?” asked a glader.

Minho nods.

**You can see that the glade resides inside the center of a circle of smaller passages made of wood, that slowly transition to larger corridors. The runner leans his hands on the outer rim of the stone table.**

**Minho sighs, “It's the maze. All of it.”**

**Thomas looks up surprised, “what’d you mean all of it? I thought you were still mapping it?”**

**“There’s nothing left to map. I've run every inch of it myself. Every cycle..every pattern… If there was a way out we would have found it by now.”**

**Thomas shakes his head slightly, “why haven't you told anyone this?”**

“Yeah? Why haven't you?” asked Gally angrily, betrayed at Minho not telling him about the completed map.

Minho looked at him calmly, “If you waited, then you would know why.”

**“It was Alby’s call. People needed to believe we had a chance of getting out.”**

**“But maybe now.. we have a real chance.” He hands Thomas the object found inside the griever.**

**“*sigh* take a look at this.” he leaned down towards the model holding a hand above a cluster of corridors,”About a year ago, we started exploring these outer sections. And we found these numbers, printed on the walls.”**

**Rocks with the corresponding numbers label them,”sections one, through eight. See the way it works is, every night, when the maze changes, it opens up a new section.”**

“You figured that out all by yourself?” asked Vince, receiving a nod from the runner. 

**“So today, section six was open. Tomorrow, there’ll be four and eight and three. The pattern.. always stays the same.”**

**Thomas rubbed his finger across the panel highlighting number seven on the device.**

**“What's so special about seven?” the grennie mutters.**

**“I don’t know. Last night, when you killed that griever, section seven was open. Think it must be where it comes from. Tomorrow you and I are gonna take a closer look.”**

**Thomas nods, and as they turn back towards the model, Jeff and Clint come pounding down the trail to the door.**

**Minho stands in front of the maze “Hey! What’re you guys doing? You’re not allowed in here.”**

“How did you guys not see the map? It was right in front of you.” asks gally.

“We had other things to worry about at the time.” Jeff answers, not elaborating. 

**“*panting* sorry. It's just the um..” Jeff starts, “It's the girl!” Clint interrupts.**

**“Thoams turns toward them, “What, is she awake?”**

**“You could say that.” Jeff says.**

**The camera shows the group running through the field, stopping before Chuck who looks to be pointing and laughing at something in front of him.**

**“Chuck what’s goin’ on?” as thomas asks this, yelling can be heard in the background.**

**Chuck points, “Girls are awesome!” he laughs.**

**They look to see gladers crowded at the bottom of the hightower, dodging flying rocks as they try to calm down the girl.**

**“Leave me alone!”**

**“Ow! Watch ya’ head!” yells frypan, holding a pan over his own.**

Laughter breaks out all over the theater. 

**Gally’s at the front, “Hey! Throw one more of those things a- AH” Gally who just got hit in the forehead with a rock yells in pain.**

The laughter increases, and a few snorts are heard around the room.

**“Go away!”**

**Thomas runs into the throw, “What happened?”**

**Newt, who’s duking under makeshift wooden shields says while laughing, “I don't think she likes us very much!”**

“No shit!” says Vince, still laughing 

**“What do you want from me!?”**

**The greenie yells up, “Hey, we just wanna talk!”**

**The girl continues to throw rocks. “I'm warning you!”**

**Frypan ducks away “Take cover y’all! Take cover!”**

Sonya is giggling uncontrollably at Frypans reaction.

**Thomas yells above the other galders, “Woah-woah hey hey it's thomas! It's thomas!”**

**As soon as he says that, she stops throwing rocks and the yells quiet down. She peeks her head over the edge.**

**Seeing that she calmed down he calls to her, “O-ok I'm gonna come up, okay?” She backs away.**

**“Okay..” he turned to gally, “Just me.” the glader looked at him like he was crazy.**

**Thomas started climbing the hightower, “I'm coming up!”**

**Below, Minho and Chuck were laughing at him.**

“You guys were laughing at me?” he asked.

“No,well, just the fact that you were so nervous.” Minho explains sharing a look of amusement with Chuck. 

**He pushes up the door, only to be met with a large machete-like blade to the face.**

Teresa blushes at her demeanor, she looks like a scared cat, but with a knife.

**“Woah Woah! Woah woah. Okay just- uh easy alright?”**

**She looks at him threateningly, “Where am i? What is this place!? Why can't I remember anything?”**

**Thomas, slowly climbs up the ladder, holding a placitating hand out in front of him. “This is- This is all normal okay. We-we’ve all been through this. Okay? An’ your name. That’ll come back to you in a couple days. It's like the one thing that's-”**

**“Teresa.” she says defensively.**

“You already remembered your name?” asked Mary, surprised at how quick it came back to the girl.

**Thomas pauses, “What’d you say?”**

**“My name!” she says pushing the knife out more. “It's Teresa.”**

**“Okay,” the greenie mutters “Teresa, I’m thomas.”**

**“Bu- But you already knew that.. I guess huh.”**

“Ew you’re so awkward. I hate it. Confident thomas is better.” laughs Brenda

**She looks to the side, “They said I kept saying your name in my sleep. Who are you?”**

“Wouldn’t he like to know?” smirks Janson, receiving glares from the room. 

**Thomas squints at her. He sighs, “I don’t know.” the greenie looks away, before turning back to make eye contact. “I dont- I cant- I can't remember okay? None of us.. None of us here can remember, anything! We all woke up here, just like you did. Okay I promise. W-” he scooches closer, and slowly raps his hand around the blade of the knife.**

**“I'm gonna take this.” Teresa lets go of the hilt. Thoams lets out a sigh of relief, “Oh’kay..”**

“You look so relieved.” chuckles Newt 

**Gally shouts from below, “What’s going on up there!?”**

**Teresa, who seems to have shrunken back the sound of the unknown boy, leans away from the edge.**

**Thomas stands and looks down at the slowly dissipating crowd.**

**“Is she comin down?” calls Newt, who has his hands on his hips.**

**The glader sighs slightly, “Um..” he turns to Teresa, who looks up at him, her arms wrapping around her knees.**

**“Hey listen, you guys just give us a second okay?” Gay shuffles impatianly at the words.**

**Newt turns to leave after a pause, “Alright. Come on!” he motions for the group to follow him as Gally huffs up at Thomas.**

**“‘This what all girls are like?” asks frypan looking up at the hightower.**

Aris snorts, nodding. Harriet punches him in the shoulder. 

**Minho and Chuck share a glance before turning to leave, everyone following behind them.**

**The scene changes to show the two greenies sitting on the edge side-by-side.**

“They always did gravitate towards one another while researching at headquarters.” says Dr. Paige quietly. She had quite the fondness towards Thomas and seeing him with his best friend warmed her. 

Newt, who heard her, glared, before huffing and turning back to the screen. 

**“She’s the last one.” Teresa mutters. “What does that mean?”**

**“I'm not sure. Ever since you came up the Box hasn't gone back down. Y’know, and I just think it's got everyone a little worried.”**

**Thomas turns to gaze at the field. “Especially Gally.” The view shows that thomas was glancing at siad glade, who was watching the two from far away with his arms crossed.**

**Teresa assesses him. “He thinks it's my fault.”**

“Gally always has someone to blame for everything.” mutters Minho. 

**The greenie sighs in reluctant agreement. “Are you sure you don’t remember anything?”**

**Tersa considers it again. “I remember water, feeling like I was drowning. These faces, staring at me.”**

**Thomas looks down.**

**“And these voices.. A woman's voice saying the same thing over, and over.”**

**“Wicked is good.” thomas finishes.**

**Teresa trunks to him surprised, and he stares at her, before shuffling to face her directly.**

**“Ever since I’ve been here I've had these dreams.. Well I thought they were dreams. You… You were there.”**

“That sounds really creepy when you think about it.” Laughs Thomas. 

**Tersa assesses him.**

**“You were there, a-an’ you told me that everything was going to change.”**

**She watches him for a moment before turning away, a confused look on her face. “What does it mean?”**

**“I don't know. An’ I-I ju- I just always get pieces.”**

“You always stutter a lot when you’re nervous.” Newt says, looking at Thomas for a moment.

**“And the others don't remember anything?”**

**“No.” he says, upset. “Why are we different?”**

“You’re not different.. Just special.” compliments Mary, making Thomas’s ears go red. 

**Teresa shifts, reaching into her pocket and pulling out what looks to be two glass cylinders filled with blue liquid.**

**“These were in my pocket when I came up.” She holds them out to Thomas to take them, and sees that on one side, each tube had the initials W.C.K.D. printed on the side.**

“How did you guys not find those when she was sleeping?” asked Gally. 

“Dude. I don't go fondling strange girls while they sleep, man.” Said Jeff, making Gally realize what he said and look down in embarrassment.

**“W.C.K.D.” he mutters “Wicked is good.”**

**“What if we were sent here for a reason?”**

**To be Continued...**


	8. Back into the Maze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> School suck, so ill have less time to write, but it'll come eventually. :/

Chapter 8

**Thomas looks up with wide eyes and looks at Teresa.**

**“Alby.”**

“What does alby have to do with it?” asked Chuck.

**The scene changes to show Alby restrained on a bed inside the infirmary. Black veins crawl up his chest toward his head.**

**Newt is heard in the background, “We don’t even know what this stuff** **_is_ ** **. We don’t know** **_who_ ** **sent it. Or** **_why_ ** **it came up here with you. I mean, for all we know, t-t-this thing could** **_kill_ ** **him.”**

“You want to inject that into him?!” asked Vince worriedly. “You didn’t even know what it was?!” 

“Well.. we wanted to see if we had any chance of saving him. There was no other way than to test it.” said Thomas 

**Thomas has his hands on his hips, facing towards Newt from the edge of Albys bed.**

**He motions to the sick glader “He’s already dying. Look at him!”**

**Newt looks away frustrated.**

**“How could this possibly make it** **_any_ ** **worse? Come on it's worth a try.”**

“Try to be a little more sensitive, Hermano.” says Jorge 

Thomas nods. He was being a little too forward. As far as he knew, Alby and Newt were really close, as they were in the maze before many others. 

**Alby is struggling to breath, gasping for air as his back arches off the infirmary bed. He grunts ferociously in pain as Newt watches his face contort in different ways. Newt’s expression changes to extreme worry as the groans increase.**

**“Alright. Do it.” he hands the vile back to thomas.**

**The greenie grabs it and rushes to Alby’s side, leaning over him with the syringe positioned over his neck. He looks back a newt, the med-jacks approaching from behind to watch. “Okay..”**

**He turns back to inject it, when he suddenly meets eyes with Alby, who is seemingly awake. The leader of the gladers suddenly grabs Thomas's shirt, pulling him close.**

**“You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be here!” Alby screams as Thomas struggles in his grasp. The other gladers rush to separate the two.**

“What does he mean you ‘shouldn’t be there’?” asked Brenda.

“Yeah.. Why do all of the infected so far seem to freak out when they see Thomas?” asked Aris.

Said Greenie sat in uncomfortable silence, feeling guilty about his role in the gladers fate. 

**Newt fumbles to tear Alby’s hands away. “Watch out!”**

**Thomas grabs a hold of the glader’s wrists, pushing them beside his head. “Get the syringe!”**

**Teresa rushes from behind, and stabs the syringe into Alby’s chest. The serum takes effect immediately, the struggling glader calms down and lays on the bed, panting for air.**

**The group backs away, breathing in harsh breaths of air.**

**Jeff looks at the syringe still inside Alby. “Well.. that worked.”**

“Yeah, no shit.” said Gally. 

**Newt looks at everyone with a slightly panicked look on his face. “Okay, from now on, someone stays here and watches him ‘round the clock.”**

**The angle switches to show a close up of Teresa, who looks at Newt and nods slightly. From behind her, you can see Gally slowly walk into the room.**

**“Hey.”**

**They turn towards him. “Sun down greenie. Time to go.”**

“Oh come on Gally! He literally just saved someone from death inside the maze, and might have also saved Alby from the sting. Couldn’t you have let him off a little.” complains Brenda.

“Hey man, he broke our rules. And, might I add, that this is the past, and I can't change any of it.” Gally said defensively. 

**Teresa stares at Tomas incredulously as he shares a look with Newt, before walking around the bed and through the door past Gally, who follows behind him.**

**Alby is shown one last time, breathing heavily, but no longer struggling.**

**Thomas and Gally are shown from behind, walking towards the Pit, where the greenie is due to stay for the night.**

**“Hey what is your problem with me?”**

“That's what we would all like to know.” drawls Minho.

**“Everything started going wrong the minute you showed up. First Ben, now Alby, n’ now the girl. Everybody saw she recognized you. An’ I'm bettin’ you know who she is.”**

“You really think this is all his fault?” Asked Vince. 

Thomas shuffled guiltitly in his seat. It really was his fault, but he couldn’t stand the fact that his friends were getting killed in mazes while he sat in control rooms. If he hadn’t told Mary the locations of the trials, then many more kids could have possibly died. 

**Gally reaches down to open up the pit, holding open the door so Thomas can jump inside. He starts to tie the rope, sealing the greenie inside when Thomas grabs the door.**

**“Gally… y-y-you know we can't stay here forever right?”**

“He’s right, we couldn't have stayed there forever. The trials only last so long before they run out of things to test.” said Newt. 

**The galder looks at Thomas warily, as if he mentioned some secret he wasn’t supposed to talk about. Gally stood up, not saying anything, but answering Thomas nonetheless with his silence.**

“You really wanted to stay there?” asked Brenda incredulously.

“...No.” Gally said forcibly.

“Yeah.. that's totally convincing.” Brenda said.

**The greenie huffed incredulously, before letting go of the door, and backing into the pit.**

**Thomas is seen sitting in the dark, re-reading the note that arrived with Teresa, when light floods the darkness. He sits up surprised, hearing a clanking sound coming from outside.**

**“Who’s there?” Thomas hurriedly shoves the note into his pocket.**

“You wouldn’t have gotten in trouble for reading the note mate.” muttered Newt, leaning his shoulder into Thomas’s. 

For some reason, when Newt leaned closer, a sort of fluttering feeling came from Thomas’s stomach. He had no idea what it was, he had never experienced something like this before. It was strange. 

**Chuck leans over the door. “It's just me.”**

**The greenie sighs. “Sorry Chuck.”**

**“Here.” Chuck hands down a water bottle and some food. “You’ll run better on a full stomach.” The glader sits down next to the door.**

Gally looks at Chuck reproachfully. Chuck looks back at him with a raised eyebrow, challenging him. 

**Thomas unwrapped the food and immediately began to eat hungrily. He glances up and holds up the food in his hand. “Thanks Chuck.”**

**Said glader looks at the greenie and sighs as he takes out a wooden carving.**

**Thomas nods with his head at it. “Hey, whatta ya got there?”**

‘He looks so cute when he’s curious’ Newt thinks. 

**Chuck looks at him warmly, before holding it in front of the door.**

**The greenie leans forward to get a closer look. It's a wood carving of a short and chubby boy, the facial features are wonky, but still there.**

**“Oh that came out pretty good man! What's that for?”**

**“It’s for my parents.”**

**“You remember your parents?”**

“Nobody remembers anything from before the maze unless they’re stung.” Alby murmurs, resigned. 

**Chuck shakes his head and whispers “... No. Well I mean, I know I must have them.” he sighs deeply. “And wherever they are I'm sure they miss me, but.. I can't miss them cause i don't remember them.”**

The gladers are silent. All of them had gone through similar emotions while trapped in the maze. Usually it was best not to think about it. But, with Chuck being so young, you wouldn’t really prevent the longing for parents you didn’t remember.

**Chuck looks away. “What’d you think you're gonna find out there tomorrow?”**

**“..uh.. I don't know.”**

**The younger galder glaces down sadly, prompting Thomas to say something. “Hey.. but if there’s a way out, Chuck, me and Minho are gonna find it.”**

**Chuck sighs softly and shuffles to grab his wooden figure from where he put it down. “Here.” He holds it in between one of the gaps in the door for Thomas to take it.**

**Thomas grabs it and huffs, confused. “Chuck, why would you give this to me?”**

**Chuck shakes his head. “Can’t remember them anyway. But, maybe if you find a way out** **_you_ ** **can give it to them for me.” The galder looks at Thomas earnestly, before growing awkward and shakily standing up. “Okay get some sleep.”**

**Thoams is still as Chuck begins to walk away, before holding up the carving to look at it.**

“Don't just let him walk away feeling like that.” murmured Mary. 

**“Hey Chuck?” the glade turns around,Thomas motions to him. “Come here.” Chuck comes back to the door. “Put out your hand.”**

**Thomas grabs Chuck's hand with both hands, one on his wrist, and the other wrapping the boy's fingers around the wooden figure.**

**“I want you to give that to them yourself.” The greenie stares at him, determined. “We’re gonna get outta here. All of us. Okay? Promise.”**

**Chuck nods, smiling slightly.**

“Thanks for that thomas. It really helped.” said Chuck, grinning widely. 

Thomas smiles sadly back. Chuck never made it out of the Maze entirely before he was killed. He still felt guilty about not keeping his promise. 

**“Alright.” Thomas mutters as Chuck leaves with a small, “Night buddy.” to which Thomas responds the same. “Night, buddy.”**

**The light diminishes, the moon left to eluminate Thomas's face. You can see him nod slightly before the scene changes once more, now showing morning over the glade.**

**Minho walks quickly up to the pit, kneeling down at the entrance. “Big day greenie! You sure you don’t wanna sit this one out?”**

**Thomas shakes his head in amusement. “Come on man, get me outta here.”**

**“Aight.”**

**They’re shown walking towards the closed doors, this time adjourned with leather harnesses equipped with knives and other weapons.**

**They stop just as the doors open slowly.**

**“Lets go!” Minho sprints off, leaving Thomas behind, before he turns determined and runs to catch up with the glader.**

**The sprint through the maze, regulating the breaths to keep speed.**

**“This way! Not much farther till the inner ring. Lets go!”**

**The corridors begin to grow in width, and the walls have squares of concrete building out in different levels, adding floors and creating doors.**

“That’s what the maze looks like?” asks a glader. He had been one of the many who didn’t survive the night of the Griever attacks. 

Newt looks at him sadly, he missed everyone who had died before they had a chance to ‘escape’. “..Yeah. That's what it looks like.”

**They run through an opening, and on their left, is a giant spread of wall, where the number five is printed in red, labeling the section.**

**They eventually get to section six, similarly labeled on the walls, before going under an overpass, entering to the seventh section, two walls forming a single corridor.**

**They slow to a walk through the opening.**

**“That's strange.”**

**“What?” asks Thomas nervously.**

**“Seven’s not supposed to be open for another week.”**

**Reaching the end of the corridor, Minho and Thomas enter an opening, though this time, it's filled with metal, blade-like walls tuned in different directions, blocking their view from the rest of the space.**

“Woah..” some of the gladers say, having not seen it before they died. 

**“What the hell is this place?”**

**“We call em’ blades.”**

**Minho starts walking through them quickly, used to the sight of the metal walls. Though Thomas on the other hand, never before having been there, walked a little behind Minho, looking around at the foriegn blades surrounding him.**

**They approach a scrap of fabric on the ground.They crouch down, and Minho picks up the scrap. Spots of white can be seen peeking through the blood, which covers the shirt.**

**“It's Ben’s isn't it?”**

**Minho drops it. “Yeah… A Griever must have pulled him down here.”**

Ben shudders in his seat. From what he could remember, those were the most painful and terrifying moments in his life.

The gladers who saw the shudder look down guiltily, they had sentenced him to death in the maze. And as far as they knew, it wasn’t a peaceful one either. 

**They stood up, and as they paused, the sound of something turning on appeared, followed by soft clicking noises. They hear the noise and Minho turns over his shoulder towards it.**

**Thomas suddenly grabbed Minho by the shoulders and turned him around, making him bend over slightly.**

Minho chuckles, “Could’ve used a little warning bud.” Thomas’s ears turn pink, trying to ignore the stickers around him. 

**“Woah! Hey!” Minho's words of surprise echo through the blades as Thomas grabbes the device from Minho’s pack.**

**It was the piece found inside the griever, it had turned on again. Thomas looked at it closely as he shifted from foot to foot.**

**He turns and, matching with his steps, the clicking sound varies with each slight movement.**

**He turns back, the noise increasing, until he takes a couple steps forward, when a noise similar to purring, one he had heard from the griever, came from the device.**

**He looks up in realization.**

**“I think it's showing us the way.”**

“I'm surprised you caught on so quickly. But then again Hermano, it's you, so you really shouldn't expect anything ordinary. You’re a wild card.” said Jorge laughing. 

Newt laughs at jorges claim. The sound makes Thomas’s stomach do somersaults, which he quickly tried to ignore in favor of watching the movie. He couldn’t possibly tinak of Newt any other way than his best friend. That's what they were. Friends.. Right? 

Newt noticed Thoams’s gaze from his seat next to him. He looked to be debating something. “Hey, mate? What's got you in a jumble?”

Thomas quickly forces himself back to the present. Newt is staring at him concerned. “Oh nothing, man. Let's continue watching.” he forcibly changes the subject.

Newt can't help but notice Thomas's urgency to leave the topic, so he doesn’t say anything. For now. 

**Thomas looks back at Minho, who has an expression of concern across his face.**

**They walk quickly as the clicking increases with each step. It slows for a moment.**

**“Wh-w-w-wait.” Thomas holds an arm out to stop Minho.**

**“What?” the runner asks nervously, his question echoing as he looks around.**

**Thomas slowly turns, the clicking increasing as he faces toward his left.**

“Never trust a strange machine, ever.” says someone. 

Thomas looks down. Yeah, they found the way out because of it, but that device could have easily led them to their deaths. 

**He quickly picks up his pace, now going a different direction through the blades, motioning for Minho to follow. “This way. Come on.”**

**They approach an opening in the walls surrounding the field of blades. In Thomas’s hands, the device lets out another purring sound.**

**They share a look, before following the directions and heading down.**

**They enter a huge cavern with only a single walkway in the middle.**

**“Minho, you ever seen this place before?”**

**Minho, who was spinning around, looking at the undiscovered territory responds. “No.”**

**The camera pans up to reveal that they had entered a sort of enlarged pipe system, the device speeding up as they walked.**

**Eventually they reach the end of the walkway reaching a stone wall.**

**“Ah! it's just another dead end!” says Minho, upset.**

“Don't be so sure.” sneers Janson. 

The gladers glare at him. 

Thomas scoffs, he liked him better when he was dead. 

**Just as he was saying this the clicking centered into the device, and stopped. Thomas looks at it, only to see the number seven, as well as the light above, turn green along with a corresponding whistle.**

**At the sound, the wall behind Thomas starts to rise up from the bottom, startling the runners.**

**As it rises, they can see several doors behind it rise as well, eventually a round metal door that also opens up, revealing pitch black.**

“That doesn't look safe.” whispers someone. 

**They stare at the door, before Minho turns to Thomas.**

**“You sure about this?”**

**The greenie gulps. “Nope.” he begins to walk into the corridor.**

“That's reassuring.” drawls Brenda sarcastically. 

**Above them, they can see a peak of sunlight through the high opening at the top.**

**The gladers slowly approach the door. Minho walks toward the edge, where he runs his hand along it, bringing up slime. He shows it to thomas.**

**“Grievers!”**

**A noise comes from beyond the door, before a blinding red light burns at their retinas. It transforms into a horizontal laser, that scans the gladers up and down, before disappearing.**

“What the hell?” says Vince. 

**A bell like sound comes from above the walls, scaring the runners, before an echo of pressure being released can be heard.**

**“The** **_hell_ ** **was that?”**

**To be Continued...**


	9. The Grievers attack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ehehehe a new chapterr (comment about any noticeable typos or errors) :))

Chapter 9

Concerned looks are shared through the theater. 

**A horn echoes through the maze, making Minho jump, and the runners hear the shifting of stone.**

**Gears are audible through the walls.**

**“We gotta get outta here.”**

**They start to run out of the hallway.**

**“Gimme the key. Gimme the key!” Thomas tosses it to Minho, who stuffs it back into his pack.**

**“Move move move!” yells Thomas**

**They make it out just as the circular door closes, the stone walls lowering down, blocking the corridor.**

**They sprint down the walkway, exiting back into the blades. They skid to a stop. The blades were starting to turn.**

“What's happening?” asked Vince. 

“The sections closing.” explained Minho.

**“We gotta go! R-Run thomas!”**

**The blades were turning into long walls of impenetrable metal.**

**“We're gonna get trapped! Go! Go!”**

**They sprint through the rapidly closing blades, trying to get through. Minho just makes it past a blade, before it closes on thomas.**

**“No!”**

“No!” repeated Newt in a whisper. Even though he knew Thomas would make it out, it still worried him. 

**Thomas runs along the blades as they close one by one, trying to make it to an opening. He turns, and you can see that on the other side, Minho is running alongside him.**

**“MINHO!”**

“I never really noticed before, but Thomas is super fast.” said Frypan.

Gally looks at him incredulously. “You’re kidding me right?”

Frypan laughed nervously. “.. Yeah…”

**“Come on lets go lets go!” Minho yells**

**Thomas yells in frustration. He continues to run, slowly leaning closer to the blades, until he finally runs fast enough to run sideways through two blades.**

Exhales of relief are heard throughout the theater. 

**He crashes into Minho, who holds him up and pulls him forward, continuing to run. “Come on! Keep going keep going! Lets go!”**

**They turn the corner back into the maze, stumbling slightly, before running out into an opening.**

**They are stopped by the ground cracking. In front of them, the stone raises up, standing to form walls. Ahead, a metal drawbridge-like slab is released, making them run to the side to avoid being crushed.**

**They sprint away as the metal crashes into the ground, until without pause, the ground cracks, and more gigantic slabs continue to rise behind them.**

“Holy Shit.” mutters Gally. 

**“Come on don't look back!” Minho yells above the crashing.**

**Ahead, more drawbridge-like doors fall, one just above them. Thomas picks up his pace, narrowly avoiding being crushed.**

**The turn to run through the exit of section seven, but see that the floor has begun to rise, closing off the opening.**

“Jesus christ it just keeps getting worse.” says Brenda.

Thomas chuckles. It was really stressful trying to get through the section as it closed. 

**Minho jumps up onto the platform, followed by Thomas, and they army crawl through the rapidly tightening space.**

**Thomas tumbles out just as the section closes. Him and Minho grunt with exertion while laying side by side on the maze floor.**

**They watch as the concrete shuts, and let out twin signs of relief.**

Snickers are heard from the groups.

**The scene changes to show a puddle reflecting the forms of the gladers, standing at the front of the maze.**

**Thomas’s foot splashes through the puddle, the camera panning up to show the runners jogging out of the maze.**

**“W-What the hell was going on out there?!” akses Newt, his voice raised an octave out of worry.**

Alby raises an eyebrow. It was rair for newt to be this worried about a glader.

Newt see’s the look directed at him and turns away embarrassed. 

**They speed walk through the crowd, Newt at Minho's side.**

**“What the hell have you done now thomas?” asks Gally annoyed.**

“Ok, so everything’s his fault now?” asked Brenda.

Gally looks away like a petulant child.

**“We found something. A new passage. We think it could be a way out.”**

**Newt looks at him incredulously. “Really?”**

**“It's true.” Minho says, panting. “We opened a door. Something I ain’t seen before. Think it must be where the Grievers go during the day.”**

**“Wait w-w-woah.” Chuck joggs up in between the runners. “You’re saying you found the Grievers home? And you want us to go in?”**

**Thomas looks at him. “Their way in could be our way out, Chuck.”**

**Gally, walking little ways behind them, opposes. “Yeah.** **_Or_ ** **, there could be a dozen Grievers on the other side!”**

**The Runners have annoyed looks at Gally’s voice.**

**“The truth is, Thomas doesn't know what he’s done! AS USUAL!”**

“Dude leave him alone.” said someone. 

“I literally can't do anything about it. This is the past!” said Gally frustrated. 

**Thomas turns around pissed off. “Yeah well at least I did something,** **_Gally_ ** **. I mean, what have you done?! Huh!? Aside from hide behind these walls all the time?!”**

Oohs broke out in the theater. “That was rough, man.” said Aris. 

**Gally steps closer to Thomas, holding up three fingers.**

**“Lemme tell you something,** **_greenie_ ** **. You’ve been here** **_three days_ ** **. I've been here for** **_three years_ ** **-”**

**“Yeah, You've been here for three years, and you're** **_still_ ** **here, Gally! Alright! So, what does that tell you? M-maybe you should start doing things a little differently.”**

“You tell him, Thomas.” said Sonya, who was frustrated at Gally’s false sense of superiority. 

**“Guys.” a feminine voice calls out.**

**Gally plowes on. “Maybe you should be in charge. Thomas, what about that?”**

**“Hey!” the voice yells, trying to get their attention.**

**“Maybe you should be in charge-”**

**“It's Alby!” The voice turns out to be Teresa, standing outside the group.**

**They stop arguing, and look at Teresa, the silence deafening.**

**“He’s awake.”**

**The gladers enter the infirmary. “Has he said anything?” asks Minho worriedly.**

**Alby is shown, sitting on the side of the bed with his eyes closed, arms crossed.**

**“No.”**

**Newt walks to sit next to him. “Alby..” he mutters.**

**“Alby you alright?” The glader opens his eyes, which are wet with tears.**

**Alby doesn't respond.**

**Thomas looks around, before approaching, and kneeling in front of Newt. “Alby. Alby w-we might've just found a way out of the maze. You hear me? We could be getting outta here.”**

**Albys sniffles, before shaking his head. “We can't… We can't leave. They won’t let us.”**

**Thomas looks up at him confused, glancing at Newt. “What’re you talking about?” he mutters.**

**“I remember.”**

Everyone looks to Alby in surprise. He just continues to watch the screen. 

**The gladers share surprised looks.**

**Thomas lickes his lips nervously. “What’d you remember?”**

**Alby turns to him. “You.”**

**Everyone looks at thomas.**

The same happens in the theater. Thomas sighs. Newt gives reprimanding looks to the people looking. 

**“You’re always their favorite, Thomas. Always.”**

Thomas shrinks into himself. He hated what he did at Wicked. 

**No one says anything. Thomas looks confused, before yelling comes from outside. Everyone besides Alby looks towards the sound.**

**Thomas turns for a moment before Alby begins again.**

**“Why did you do this? Why did you come here?” The glader starts to cry, a tear dripping down the right side of his face.**

“What is he talking about?” asked a glader.

Thomas just shook his head. 

**Thomas stands up, shaken by his words, but turns toward the increasing commotion outdoors.**

**Alby holds his head in his hands, crying.**

**They run outside to see boys running around with torches, yelling to each other.**

**“Hey what-what's going on?” Thoams asks Winston.**

**“It's the doors, they aren't closing.”**

“What? They aren't closing?” asked Vince. 

Thomas and the gladers who escaped look away. They never told anybody about what happened that night. 

**It’s almost nightfall, and they turn to see that, just like Winston said, the doors still haven't closed.**

**Thomas runs up with the group, standing in front of the doors.**

**A deafening creak of stone echoes through the glade, making the boys and Teresa cover their ears.**

**They follow the noise to see that behind them, a set of doors across the glade are opening. Suddenly, the same happens to the other walls.**

**Thomas, a disbelieving look on his face turns to beside him. “Okay, Chuck, I want you to go to the counsel hall. Okay. Start barricading the doors.” Chuck nods at him.**

**Newt looks behind him. “Winston, you go with him.”**

**“Got it.”**

**Gally looks to the gladers “Grab the others! Tell them to go to the forest, go hide! NOW!”**

**Thomas looks at Minho. “Minho I want you to grab every weapon you can find.” the runner nods. “Meet you at counsel hall.”**

**“Let's go.” He and some others ran to go do what Thomas asked.**

**The greenie turns to Teresa. “Okay Teresa, you and I are gonna go get Alby, alright?”**

**He takes a step toward the infirmary, when screams are heard from behind him.**

**The gladers who had gathered around one of the new openings are sprinting away. “GRIEVERS! ITS GRIEVERS! RUN!”**

**A roar echoes from in front. They look into the maze, and see multiple Grievers coming around the corners.**

**“ALRIGHT EVERYBODY HIDE!” Thoams screams.**

**The gladers run towards shelter, but Teresa is standing there, staring at the horrifying creatures.**

“Idiot.” whispered Gally.

**Thomas stops. “Teresa! Come on!” he grabs her wrist, pulling her along as they run through the corn stalks. A glader screams in pain.**

**“Stay down!”**

**The group squats down, trying to keep silent as gladers are being eaten by the Grievers.**

**One of them looks around scared, but above him, you can see the scorpion-like tail of a Griever. It grabs onto him, lifting him from the group.**

**He screams, the group turning toward him in alarm.**

**“ZART!” yells thomas.**

**Zart continues screaming. “RUN!”**

**“HELP ME!”**

Zart winces. He just hoped that most of the gladers survived. 

**The group quickly gets up and sprints away. “GO, GO, get to the village!” Thomas yells, pushing Teresa.**

**They run through the corn stalks, whacking plants away from their faces.**

**The scene changes to show Gally opening the Box so gladers can climb in. “Go go go!” More screams echo behind him. He turns for a split second, before climbing into the Box and closing the gate.**

**The boys shuffle in terror. “Stay down stay down!” Gally says.**

**A glader comes running to the Box. “GALLY!! LEMME IN LEMME IN!” Gally begins to push up the grate, when the glader is grabbed by a metal tail.**

**They sit in the Box, looking at each other.**

**Thomas and everyone else run to the infirmary. Jeff and Clint are carrying Alby by the arms.**

**“Alby!”**

**“What's goin on?!” asks Jeff.**

**“They're here.”**

**“The grievers?!”**

**A scream is heard, and they turn to see someone holding a torch being eaten by a griever.**

The glader flinches, he didn’t know that he would have to watch himself die during this. 

**The group looks on horrified. Thomas looks to the side, and grabs a machete that was embedded in a tree next to him.**

**“Thomas, what’d we do?” Asks Jeff nervously.**

**Suddenly behind them, someone is pulled by the ankles, screaming for help. A roar comes from their left, and they turn to see gladers being slaughtered.**

**“Everybody Run! Run run! Go go go go go go!”**

**They run forwards, trying to put distance between the monsters behind them, when abruptly, a Griever crashes through the building in front of them.**

“Oh shit.” whispers Vince. 

**It readies its tail to strike while they try to get Alby up, when Teresa grabs an alcohol candle from atop a nearby barrel, and throws it at the beast.**

**It immediately goes up in flames, screaming horribly.**

“Yes girl, that was badass!” compliments Brenda, despite her still being pissed off at the girl. 

**“ALRIGHT EVERYONE GO GO GO!” Thomas yells.**

**They sprint past the burning Griver, but as they run further, it puts out the flames and crawls after them.**

**The group is running across the field trying to avoid the Grievers, when one of the gladers accidentally falls behind.**

**The Griever from before is just catching up to him when he looks to the side and screams.**

**“NOO!”**

**A Griever had cut him off from the side, grabbing him with its teeth.**

The gladers winced, and sent the boy looks of pity. 

**Thomas looked back for the glader, before turning back and yelling.**

**“KEEP MOVING!!”**

**Hearing Thomas, Jeff turns back, accidentally making Alby fall from where he was grabbing onto him.**

“That can't be good.” said somebody. 

**“ALBY!!” Clint yells.**

**Thomas runs up and helps him up with Jeff.**

**“Get behind me!” The Griever crawls up, stopping before the group. Thomas holds the machete in front of him.**

**“COME ON!!”**

“Never antagonize a griever.” grumbles Gally angrily. 

**Before the Griever could even advance a step, multiple spears pierced its body.**

The theater relaxed slightly. 

**“OVER HERE! LETS GO! OVER HERE!”**

**They turn to see Minho, Newt, and Frypan advancing from where the spears came from.**

**They run towards the counsel hall. Chuck stands in the front, “OVER HERE COME ON!” he yells.**

**Thomas and Jeff carry Alby towards the door.**

**“Winston! Get Alby inside!”**

**Everyone runs inside the counsel hall. “Chuck get in! Go go go!”**

**Thomas runs inside, stumbling a little, before grabbing a hold of the door, and shoving it closed.**

**They barricade the doors, and go down into the center.**

**The Grievers are crashing into the door, trying to get inside. One sniffs under the door, scenting, before there is a moment of relative peace.**

**Just then, the Griever slams down onto the roof, making the group scream.**

Mary jumps, before looking mournfully at the screen. Those kids had to go through so much terror that night. 

**“Stay back guys.” says Newt.**

**They can hear the monster climb onto the roof, making dust fall onto the galder, who move to not be under the Griver.**

**Chuck looks up, terrified. They crouch down, willing the danger to go away.**

**All of sudden, the tail breaks through the roof, and grabs the support beam in the middle. It rips it out, making the roof fall in.**

**The gladers are slammed to the floor, yelling in alarm. They try to pull everyone out of the wreckage.**

**“Is everyone alright?” calls Newt.**

**Thomas choughs into his arm, trying to get dust out of his lungs. Someone yells for help, and Thomas looks to see a glader buried in lumber.**

**“Help!”**

**“Hey, grab him!”**

**They reach to take his arms when he is abruptly pulled backwards through the rubble by a Griever.**

The boy flinches. Children from other mazes look at him with concerned expressions. But they soon stop because they realize that it was him that had just been grabbed on screen. 

**“OH! WATCH OUT!” yells Minho.**

**The screams of the glader can be heard alongside monstrous roars.**

**Chuck is standing against a wall, trying to hide from the Griever.**

**Crashing is heard from behind him.**

**“Chuck get away from there!” The glader tries to run back into the group, when a tail crashes through the wall. It hit away two other galders.**

**“CHUCK!”**

**The boy looks and sees the tao rearing back to grab him. He screams and tries to run to Thomas, who sprung up, attempting to save him.**

He seems very protective of the boy.. thinks Janson. Dammit. He could have used the brat as leverage. 

**The tail latches onto the 13 year olds back, and starts to lift him out of the counsel hall, but Thomas grabs him by the forearm.**

**“GRAB HIM!!” yelled Minho.**

**Everyone rushes forward and holds onto Chuck, trying to pull him from the griever's grasp.**

**“CHUCK DON’T LET GO!” screamed Thomas, looking chuck in the eye.**

**“NO SHIT!” yelled chuck through the grunts of pain.**

Small laughter breaks out at his remark. 

**The camera shows Alby sitting back, looking on worriedly. I glanced down and saw a thick wooden pole.**

**“Don’t let ’im go!” yelled Newt.**

**As they continue to pull, the metal tail adjusts to take out a stinger, intent on stabbing chuck.**

**Alby is standing now, he screams at the top of his lungs and lunges at the metal appendage. He hits the pole against the stinger, breaking it off of the tail, and advances onto the attachment.**

The galders look at Alby surprised. They had never seen him go ballistic before. 

**Everyone yells while they pull as Alby hits the tail over and over again, breaking off pieces of metal each time.**

**The tail suddenly lets go of Chuck, dropping him to the floor, but Alby doesn't stop in his attack. The tail begins to back out, and as it exits the hall, Alby screams at it.**

Aris sighs in relief. Since Chuck was introduced, he had started to like his little quirks and sassy attitude. 

**Chuck is still on the ground coughing as the gladers try to hold him up.**

**“Chuck you okay?” asks Thomas worriedly.**

**“Yeah, I’m fine.” he groans out.**

**Alby looks back at the group. Chuck picks up the stinger and looks at him. “Thanks Alby.”**

**Thomas looks at him shocked, when they hear a motor sound outside.**

**“ALBY!”**

**“Watch out!” someone yells.**

**The tail crashes back into the hall, and grabs Alby by the torso.**

Gasps come from the groups.

**Everyone screams as they’re covered with lumber.**

**“GRAB ‘IM!” yelled Newt.**

**Thomas runs up to where Alby’s latched his arms on the side of the hole in the wall. The greenie grabs Alby by the arm, grunting in distress.**

Gally looks away, feeling guilty. He had been so pissed at thomas... But it looked like he was just as distressed as he was during the attack. 

**“Thomas!” Alby says, his face contorted in pain. “Get them out.”**

**Thoams looks at him shocked, before Alby’s suddenly pulled out. The greenie fumbles to grab onto the glader, screaming.**

**“ALBY!!” Newt yells.**

**“NOO!”**

**Thomas quickly runs to the door, trying to get to Alby.**

**“THOMAS!? THOMAS! DON'T GO OUT THERE!” Teresa screams.**

**“THOMAS NO!” Minho yells.**

**“NO THOMAS WAIT!!”**

**It’s too late, Thomas is already running out the hall. But when they follow him, the Grievers are nowhere to be found, fire engulfing parts of the field.**

"What? where'd they go?" asked Vince. 

**Screams of pain are coming from a distance, before disappearing.**

**“Where is everybody?” asks Chuck.**

**To be continued…**


	10. The Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> School has been absolute shat recently so i haven't had as much time. Anyway here's a chapter.

Chapter 10

**“What's that over there?” questions Winston.**

**They turn to see figures approaching through the smoke. It's revealed to be Gally and two other gladers.**

**Walking quickly, Gally looks rightfully pissed off.**

**“Gally-” Thomas starts.**

**With no hesitation and pure rag on his face, Gally punches Thomas in the face.**

**Thomas, shocked by the punch, falls to the ground.**

**“WOAH! HEY HEY!” Gally continues to try and hit Thomas as the galders hold him back.**

**“THIS IS ALL YOU THOMAS! HUH!” Gally shouts. “LOOK AROUND!”**

**“BACK UP! Back up, guys! It's not thomas’s fault!” Minho yells.**

“Yo, what the hell is your problem?!” asked someone. 

Gally just looks away, refusing to respond. 

**“You heard what Alby said! He’s one ‘em!”**

**“One of who?!” yelled Newt.**

**“He’s one of ‘em, and they sent him here to destroy everything! And now he has!”**

**Thomas is standing again, looking at Gally struggling against the gladers.**

**“Look around thomas! Look around! This is your fault!”**

**“Hey, back up!” yells a glader.**

**Thomas looks down at the stinger still held in Chuck’s hand. He glances up again as Gally continues to fight and yell.**

**He reaches and quickly grabs the syringe-like piece from Chuck, who looks at him.**

**Thomas repostion’s the stinger so it's angled towards his stomach.**

**“Maybe he’s right.”**

“He’s not right thomas. That wasn't your fault.” says Newt, looking intently at thomas to make sure the greenie paid attention to his words. 

Thomas nods numbly.

**Teresa, who’s standing behind him hears this. “Thomas?”**

**He looks at Gally, still struggling. “I need to remember, Teresa.”**

**“Thomas?”**

**He puts both hands onto the stinger and stabs himself in the stomach. “Thomas! No!”**

“Why would you do that?!” asked Harriet.

Thomas shrugged. “I needed to remember. The only way was to sting myself.”

Newt shakes his head, he still has terrifying flashes of Thomas falling into the grass, unmoving, with the Griever stinger in his stomach. 

**The greenie screams in pain, gaining the gladers attention.**

**“No, dont!”**

**“Thomas!”**

**The galders rush over as Thomas crashes to the ground onto his side.**

**“Chuck! Get the other syringe!” Teresa says.**

**Gally stands back in shock at what the greenie did.**

**“It's okay.” she soothes to Thomas.**

**The screen fades to black.**

**Blinding white lights pass by, which focus in to be ceiling lights in a stone hallway. The camera moves, showing pipes along the walls, and a green light illuminated.**

**Water rushes past, before changing into the image of an eye, that shifts to show the blonde woman from before. Flashes of children sitting in front of screens show up.**

The gladers lean forward, trying to find at least a semblance of answers. 

**“Who put us here?” echoes Thomas's voice.**

**More people inside of a control room appear as Alby’s voice response from when Thomas first arrived.**

**“We don't know.”**

**The children appear again, on the scenes, are heart rates, x-rays, and images of brain scans being pointed to by an adult. On the screen, you can see a picture of Gally, Chuck, and others, seemingly presenting their scans.**

“Kids were researching you guys?” asked Brenda. 

Thomas nods. “They had the immunes research the older ones while they tested them, later they would wipe the kids, and put them into the maze.” 

Many people shot Dr. Paige had a disgusted look. She just sat there, still believing that what she lived for was right. 

**The woman appears again, looking between the two rows of kids.**

**The screen shows Teresa, sitting at another station.**

**“Teresa.” says thomas.**

**It shows that across from her, is Thomas. His screen showing images of the gladers, apparently researching them.**

“You studied us?” asked a glader, looking like he was betrayed. 

Thomas just nodded, not wanting to talk about all the terrible things he did for Wicked. 

**“Why are we doing this?” he asks.**

Gally stares intently at the screen. He never heard anything about this. 

**He continues to type, a brain scan on his screen.**

**“Excellent thomas.” says the woman.**

**It shows her leaning into his ear, a hand on Thomas’s shoulder.**

**“Come with me.”**

“Yeah.. that doesn't look creepy at all.” says Benda. 

**The doctors from before appear, their image changing to show flashes of Thomas on an operating table and Teresa talking to him from above.**

**Thomas is shown tilting his head down, the women standing in front of him.**

**“Thomas..”**

**“Wicked is good.”**

Almost everyone looks at Thomas shocked. He would never put his head down for anyone when he got into the maze. He was always the strong leader. Seeing him like this worried a few of the gladers. 

**Thomas is standing outside of water tanks, looking at them horrified. Flashes show the gladers inside, unconscious.**

**“How could this be my fault?” asks the greenie.**

**Gally is shown screaming at him through the water.**

Thomas rubs his eyes, he hated seeing these memories. They would occasionally come in through nightmares, always succeeding in making him get little to no sleep after waking up. 

**Doctors walk away from the tanks, The woman standing close, beckoning Thomas closer.**

**Alby is awake, yelling at Thomas as Ben's voice echoes in the background.**

**“I saw you!”**

“So that’s what Ben meant when he said that?” asked Chuck, still in shock at what he was seeing. 

Newt just slightly nodded at him. 

**Gally screams at Thomas through the water. Before switching to show Thomas looking at Teresa as his voice murmurs.**

**“I can't keep watching them die.”**

Mary looks at Thomas proudly as the gladers seem shocked that he would say that. 

**He turns away from Teresa, who seems to be upset with him.**

**His eyes flash, before opening to reveal Thomas awake in the real world.**

**“Hey.”**

**He looks up eakly to see Teresa hovering above him.**

**“Are you okay?”**

**He lifts his head slightly in shock.**

**Chuck is sitting above them, outside of the Pit.**

**“What the** **_hell_ ** **were you thinking?!”**

**Thomas sits up in surprise and looks behind him to see Newt, Minho and Chuck kneeling at the entrance to the Pit.**

**He looks at Teresa, confused. “What happened?”**

**“Gally’s taken control.” says Newt. “He said we had a choice. Either join him, or get banished at sundown with you.”**

Dirty looks are sent at Gally from around the theater. Mary looked at the tall boy, scrutinizing him under her harsh gaze.

“Thomas risked his life to save you all, and you want to sacrifice him to Grivers.” She says finally. 

Gally looks away. 

“You should be ashamed of yourself. You and no place in deciding whether he got to live or die. You are not god, you are a boy who was high on paranoia. I’m sure you will find out, but all of you boys worked for Wicked. Not just thomas. Think about that before you blame him for everything.” Mary was calm, but a fire burned in her eyes that no one would dare question.

Gally’s eyes widen a fraction, unnoticeable to the untrained eye. He huffed and played it off as if he didn’t care in the slightest. Newt, though, saw right through him. 

**Thomas rolls his eyes and huffs. He sits up, grunting in pain.**

**“Ugh- And the others agreed to that?”**

The gladers who did look down in shame. They didn’t know that it wasn’t completely Thomas's fault. 

**Teresa lowers her gaze.**

**“Gally has everyone convinced that you're the reason all this has happened.”**

**Thomas glances up at the gladers, before looking away.**

**“Well, he’s been right so far.”**

Newt reaches up and squeezes the greenie’s shoulder. 

Thomas looks at him, an indecipherable look on his face. Little did Newt know the effect his touch had on the younger boy. 

**Minho squints at him in confusion. “What’re you talking about?”**

**“This place… it's not what we thought it was.” Thomas looks at them intently.**

**“It's not a prison, it's a test.”**

**The gladers look confused at the statement.**

**“It all started when we were kids. They’d give us these challenges... They were experimenting on us.”**

**Teresa has a contemplative expression, before turning to look at Thomas as he continues.**

**“And then people started disappearing. Every month, one after the other, like clockwork.”**

**“They were sending them up into the maze.” says Newt.**

**Thomas looks at him. “Yeah.. But not all of us.”**

**“What’d you mean?” Newt asks**

**“Guys, I'm one of them.”**

“You were never one of them. You stood up for us when you couldn't even protect yourself. That was more human than any of those monsters could ever be.” whispered Newt. 

Thomas nodded shakily back at him, his eyes shining slightly. 

**Minho’s eyes narrowed, and Chuck looked shocked.**

**“The people who put you here, I worked with them.”**

**The gladers look away, expressions of bitter frustration apparent.**

**“I watched you guys for** **_years_ ** **.” he shakes his head. “The entire time you’ve been here i-”**

**His voice weakens. “I was on the other side of it.”**

**Thomas looks at Teresa. “So were you.” he gestures to her.**

**“What?” she asks quietly.**

**“Teresa, we did this to them.”**

**Teresa shakes her head, denial in her eyes. “No… that can’t be true.” a tear slides down her face.**

“You were so heartbroken then, but now you have no problem killing innocent kids for the ‘good of the people’.” sneered Gally. 

Teresa looked down, shame billowing out of her. 

Thomas didn’t say anything. As much as he wanted to defend her, he didn’t have the heart too. Yes, he was heartbroken at her death, but that didn’t fully redeem her, even if she helped them in the end. 

**Newt rubbed his face, looking away as Thomas continued talking.**

**“It is! I saw it.”**

**Teresa breathing started to quicken. “W-why would they send us up if we were with them?”**

**Thomas shakes his head again. “It doesn't matter.”**

**“He’s right.” Newt's voice came from above. Thomas looked up at him. “It doesn't matta’.”**

Shocked looks were sent his way. Newt just gestured to the scene as if saying ‘just watch it.’ 

**Newt was shaking his head, gazing at Thomas with a determined expression. “Any of it.”**

**“Cause the people we were before the maze, they don't even** **_exist_ ** **anymore. These Creators took care o’ that.”**

Mary looked appraisingly at Newt for his wisdom. She nodded at him, proud at his support of the boy she had grown fond over the years at Wicked.

**Newt leaned closer to the bars. “What does matta’, is who we are** **_now_ ** **, and what we do** **_right now.”_ **

“Amen.” said Brenda. 

**Thomas looked up at him, a defeated look still on his face, clearly resentful at himself for what he remembered.**

**“You went into the maze, and you found a way out!”**

**“Yeah, but if I hadn’t, Alby would still be alive.”**

**Newt was silent. “Maybe...” he stared at Thomas, before lowering his gaze. “But I know that if he** **_were_ ** **here, he would be telling you the exact same thing.”**

“He’s right thomas. It was not your fault what happened.” Says Alby 

Thomas looks at him, shocked. He never completely believed Newt, no matter how many times the glader said it. But, being accepted by Alby was something he never knew he needed since leaving the Maze. 

**The camera showed Thomas, looking unsure of Newt’s declaration, before the gladers voice continued.**

**“Pick your ass up, and finish what you started. Cause if we do nothing, then that means Alby died for nothing and I can't have that.”**

“You tell him Newt. He only ever listens to you when telling him what to do.” said Brenda fondly. 

Thomas’s eyebrows furrowed. He didn’t  _ only _ listen to Newt. At least.. He thought so. 

**Thomas nodded. “*sigh* Okay.”**

**He sat up straighter. “Okay but we gotta get through Gally first.”**

The gladers snort. Gally was infamous for beging unagreeable

**The scene changed to show the burnt remains of the Glade. Different shelters burned to the ground, and the crops completely scorched.**

Thomas’s eyes widened, he had never gotten to see the damage inflicted by the Grievers while in the Pit.

**Gally is shown scratching out Alby’s name. In the distance, two boys are holding Thomas up by the arms, and another glader pushing Teresa with her arms tied behind her back.**

**The gladers drop Thomas roughly onto the sand. The greenie looks to be unconscious as Gally appears behind the boys.**

**Gallys putting on gloves while looking around agitated. “This is such a waste.”**

“Then why the hell are you doing it?” asks Harriet, pissed off. 

“He was fooled into thinking that the glade was home or some shit.” said Minho, rolling his eyes. 

Gally just keeps watching the screen, refusing to even look at the gladers. 

**Teresa looks at him, her hair falling in front of her eyes.**

**Minho approaches, watching Gally warily.**

**Jeff is standing next to Winston, who looks concerned, before speaking up.**

**“Gally!”**

**The glader looks at the slicer.**

**Winston shrugs, throwing his arms up slightly. “It doesn't feel right, man.”**

**Gally glares at him with narrowed eyes.**

**Jeff speaks up. “Yeah, what if Thomas is right? Maybe he can lead us home.”**

**Gally walks closer to the boys. “We** **_are_ ** **home. Okay? I dont wanna have to cross any more names off that wall.”**

**“You really think banishing us is going to solve anything?” asks Teresa.**

**“No. But this isn't a banishing. It's an offering.”**

Gasps ran out through the hall. How could someone be so bloodthirsty, as to sacrifice innocent kids to man-eating monsters?!

**“What?!-”**

**The glader holding Terea shoves her against a wooden pole in the ground. “Wait!- Gally! What’re you doing!?” The boy grabs her wrists and ties them to above her head.**

**“You really think I'm gonna let Thomas back into the maze after what he’s done!?”**

“He didn't  _ do _ anything! He just tried to find a way out!”. Yelled someone. 

**Teresa gasps in pain as the rope tightens.**

**“Look around you! Look at our Glade!”**

**The boys look behind at the wreckage. Minho glances at Newt, and gives him a nod as Gally continues.**

**“This is the** **_only_ ** **way! And what the Grievers get what they came here for, everything goes back to the way it was.”**

**“Are you listening to this!?” Teresa says. “Why are you all just standing there, he’s crazy!”**

**“Can you shut up?”**

**She ignored him, looking at the rest of the gladers. “If you stay here, the Grievers are going to come back! They’re gonna come back, and they're gonna keep coming back until you're all** **_dead._ ** **”**

“She’s right.” said Sonya. That was what happened at their maze. 

Gally looked embarrassed,and frankly guilty, if his bright red ears had anything to say about it. 

**Gally lost his patience. “SHUT UP! Tie him up.” nobody moved.**

**“YOU HEAR ME?! I SAID TIE HIM UP!” The gladers shuffled to pick Thomas up off the ground.**

**They pulled him up half way before suddenly Thomas pulled in his arm, then elbowed one boy in the stomach. He grabbed the spear that was in the gladers hand, and knocked out the other boy.**

“Nice.” said Brenda. “You’re really good at planning things, ya know?” 

Thomas nodded slightly. He just did whatever made the most sense in each situation.

**In the crowd, Newt pulled out his machete, and knocked another galder out as Teresa kicked the boy in front of her in the crotch.**

“Ouch.” said the gladers. 

**Gally, pulling out a knife, walked forward, when suddenly, Minho had a machete resting on his shoulder, daring him to move.**

**Thomas angled the spear towards Gally as Frypan cut the ropes on Teresa's wrists.**

**Chuck rushed over, packs hung over his shoulders, carrying a spear.**

**Minho walked around Gally, the machete still held in front of him. He walked backwards towards the group gathered at the doors.**

**Frypan handed a knife to Teresa, who grabbed it without a single glance, still glaring ferociously at the gladers.**

**Gally gestured slightly. “You're full of surprises aren't you?”**

“That’s Thomas alright!” laughed Frypan. “Aint nothin’ but surprises!”

**Thomas stood his ground, still holding the spear in front of him.**

**“You don’t have to come with us, but we** **_are_ ** **leaving. Anyone else who wants to come, now's your last chance!”**

**Gally held an arm out towards the boys behind him. “Don't listen to him. He's just trying to scare you.”**

**“No, I'm not trying to scare you, you're already scared. Alright,** **_I'm scared_ ** **.”**

The theater looked at him shocked. Thomas almost never admits that he’s scared, like ever. 

**Gally stares at him shocked.**

**Thomas pants. “But I’d rather risk my life out there, than spending the rest of it in here.”**

**Winston and Jeff look at each other.**

**Thomas shakes his head. “We don't belong here. Okay, this place.. Isn't our home. We were** **_put_ ** **here. Kay, we were** **_trapped_ ** **here.” he voice wavers.**

**Gally looks back at the gladers.**

**“At least out there, we have a choice. We can make it out of here. I know that.”**

**Winston looks around at the group. Gally is adjusting his grip on his knife, when Winston walks forward to Thomas, Jeff eventually following.**

**Gally looks betrayed as Jeff passes.**

**“I'm sorry.” the med-jack murmurs.**

**Other boys start to walk to the group.**

**Gally looks behind him at the few remaining gladers, nodding sourly.**

**“Gally, It's over.”**

**Thomas lowers his spear. “Just come with us.”**

**Gally blinks quickly. “Good luck against the Grievers.” he says, a resigned look on his face, nodding.**

**Minho taps Newt on the arm, and the group turns and runs down the corridor.**

**Thomas looks back once more before running to catch up with the gladers.**

**The camera slowly moves down to show the group jogging around corners, Thomas at the front.**

**“Come on, this way!”**

**They run through section 3. “Keep it up guys! We’re almost there!”**

**They arrive at the entrance of the corridor. Everyone leans against the wall as Thomas looks around the corner.**

**The greenie pokes his head around, only to see a Griever at the end of the corridor. His breath picks up in alarm. Slowly, he turns away from the opening, a strained look on his face.**

“Damn.” said Brenda. 

**“Is there a Griever?” asks Chuck worriedly.**

**“Yeah.” he mutters.**

**“Shit.” Chuck whispers.**


	11. The End... For now.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last scenes of Maze Runner. :) I'm happy I finally finished the first movie!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished! :)) The second movie will be coming out soon! Oh, I have another work of this same type, but a Criminal Minds version. So check it out if you want!

Chapter 11

**The gladers start to look at each other in alarm, questioning if they can actually get out of the maze.**

**“You take this chuck.” Says Minho, handing him the device. “Stay behind us.”**

**Chuck takes it, looking at it nervously.**

**Thomas puts a hand on his shoulder, trying to steady him.**

**Teresa, who’s standing behind the 13-year-old, is tying her hair up. “It's okay. Just stick with me.” she says.**

**“Once we’re through it'll activate, and the door will open. Alright we stay close, we stick together, we get through this, we get out** **_now.”_ ** **Thomas says, panting slightly in nervousness.**

“Is it just me, or is Thomas really good at those bullshit inspirational speeches?” Brenda whispers to Newt.

The boy laughs, before nodding and leaning over to the girl. 

“It's not just you.” he chuckles. 

**“Or we die trying.” He finishes determinedly.**

**Thomas nods slightly at Newt, who he had been looking at during his declaration.**

Teresa looks at Thomas, her eyes squinting, before widening slightly. She turns away resignedly. 

**He switches his spear to his other hand, hitting it on the stone floor. “Ready?”**

**Minho takes a machete out of his pack, other gladers gearing up for the fight.**

**“Alright. LET'S GO!” Yells Thomas, backing into view of the Griever.**

**Everyone turns the corner, sprinting with all their might, yelling battle cries at the beast.**

**The monster stops in its pacing in front of the door, and screams hideously at the group.**

“That thing is more ugly than most of the cranks I've seen.” she says offhandedly. 

“Most?” asks Chuck worriedly. 

“Yeah, some of those fuckers are ugly as shit.” She says laughing. 

Chuck swallows, choosing not to ask for more information. 

**They run down the walkway, the Griever meeting them halfway.**

**The strongest are at the front, holding spears towards the beast, and ramming them into its body.**

**The spears barely affect the Griever, which screams again in rage, towering over the boys, who scramble to get up and stab it again.**

**“Get up, Look out!” Someone yells.**

**They stab it again, pushing it towards the edge.**

**“PUSH IT!” Thomas yells. Stabbing it in the face.**

One of the other maze kids covers their eyes, they didn't want more nightmares than what they already had from their trials. 

**The Griever, even more enraged, raises its tail, and swipes it across the group, who duck.**

**“LOOK OUT!”**

**Before they can get out, the tip transforms, and grabs a glader.**

**“NO!”**

**The Griever throws the glader, who slides off the edge, screaming.**

The theater winces, some sending pitting looks towards the boy, who merely grips his hands tighter around himself. 

**The group, momentarily distracted by the death, barely are able to react when the monster slams its tail down into the pavement in front of Teresa.**

**She uses her machete, and tries to cut at the metal appendage, screaming in rage.**

**In her efforts, the tail wacked the device out of Chuck's hands, who yelled in alarm.**

“Dammit.” muttered Vince.

**The device bounces away from the group, rolling towards the edge.**

**“THE KEY!” chuck yells, ducking under the flying steel limbs, running for it.**

**Teresa stands up. “CHUCK! WATCH THE EDGE!” she screams.**

**Chuck skids to his knees and leans, just grabbing the key before it falls completely off the edge.**

Thomas grips the boy by the shoulder tightly, feeling even more protective after he already lost him once. 

**He balances dangerously, looking down, only to be met with the terrifying face of a Griever, that’s climbing up the side.**

**“Oh no.” Chuck says.**

**Teresa runs to his aid, pulling him by his backpack. “Got you Chuck!”**

**“Pull me up, Pull me up!” He screams.**

The theater inhales in unison, worried about the glader they had gotten fond over from watching him in the Glade. 

**The gladers are gathered together, spears slowly pushing the Griever off the edge.**

**Just as they do this, Chuck and Teresa make it to their feet as the other monster climbs over.**

**They turn to the side, and see another Griever coming up from across them.**

“You’ve got to be kidding.” says Harriet. 

“That's what I thought.” said Minho. 

**“Come on!” Teresa yells.**

**The two sprinted ahead, terrified expressions covering their faces.**

**“They’re coming! Thomas!” screamed Chuck.**

**The group turned at the scream.**

**“Chuck!” cracked out Thomas.**

Newt glanced at the greenie, who was pulling chuck closer to him very time the on-screen boy screamed. 

The galder placed a hand on Thomas’s shoulder, reeling the boy back from his inner turmoil. 

The greenie smiled at Newt, and turned by to the screen, relaxing slightly. 

**The Grievers chased Chuck and Teresa to the group, who raised their spears, trying to hold off the monsters.**

**The two rushed up to the door, device in hand. As soon as they arrive, the stone rises.**

**“It works!” laughs Chuck in relief.**

Newt smiles slightly. He had always thought of Chuck like a little brother. 

**They turn back to the group.**

**Thomas faces them for a second.**

**“Teresa, go!” he yells, stabbing a Griever in the eye.**

**Chuck and Teresa run to the exit.**

**“Back up! Keep pushing!” screams Thomas.**

**“Stay together'!” yells Newt.**

**The group slowly backs into the entrance, the two others climbing through the door quickly.**

**Teresa bangs on a metal door at the end of the room, Chuck next to her. “There’s gotta be a way out! Come on!”**

**The group continues to hold the Grievers at a distance, until a glader rushes forward, trying to stab one in the head.**

**The boy stumbles, missing the monster, and is grabbed by a tail and thrown away into the abysse.**

Said boy whimpers. The glader sitting next to him holds him close, pulling his gaze away from the horrific showing of his death. 

**“It wont open!” screams Chuck.**

**Just as he was saying this, a screen appears on the door. A red map of the maze appears, numbers flashing, before the sections start to spin.**

“What the hell?” murmurs Vince. 

**Teresa runs back to the group.**

**“Thomas! There’s a code! Eight numbers!”**

“Oh.” Vince says.

**The glader turns back to the Grievers, fighting next to minho.**

**“Eight sections of the maze.” he says. “HEY MINHO, WHAT’S THE SEQUENCE?”**

“That was quick thinking dude.” compliments frypan. 

Thomas nods, and smiles slightly at his friend. 

**“WHAT?” the korean yells back.**

**“The sections of the maze! What’s the sequence?!”**

**“Seven!”**

**Teresa runs back to the door.**

**“One!”**

**“Five!”**

**“Two!”**

**“Six!”**

**“Heads up!” Newt yells, looking up into the empty space in the ceiling.**

“Oh shit.” says Chuck. “That's freaking terrifying.” 

**“Four!”**

**Above him a Griever is sliding down the cavern, before letting go and falling on Minho.**

**“MINHO!”**

**“MINHO” Frypan yells.**

**Minho is laying underneath the Griever, his spear in between its teeth.**

**“HELP, ME!” he screams.**

**Jeff rushes forward, stabbing the tip of his spear into the monster.**

**Minho rushes back on his hands and feet.**

**Jeff, trying to pull his spear out of the Griever, is bitten on the legs. He screams in pain.**

Winston and Clint try to not look as their friend is taken by the Griever, screaming for his life. 

**Winston tries to run forward, only to be held back by other gladers. “JEFF!” he screams**

**The med-jeck is pulled back by the Griever, he screams heard from behind the other monsters.**

Gally reaches over, and patts Jeff on the shoulder. 

The glader looks at him gratefully. 

**“Minho! What's the sequence?! Come on!” Chuck yells.**

**The group is backing into the door, spears held in front of them.**

**“Uh Six!”**

**“Four!”**

**“Eight! Three!”**

**Teresa puts in the numbers.**

**“Got it?!” yells Minho.**

**“Come on!” yells Chuck.**

**“Keep holding!” screams Thomas.**

“I'm surprised those brats were able to hold off the so-called ‘grievers for so long.” taunts Ratman. 

(A.N.: Ratman is Janson, for those who haven't read the book.)

The glader’s glared threateningly at him. If Newt's gaze could kill, Janson would be in the lowest pit of hell twice over from the severity. 

**Teresa taps the middle of the circle, entering the code as Newt's spear is bitten in half.**

**Behind them, the circle turns green, and the stone doors start to close one by one.**

**A Griever makes one last lunge at the group, but is stopped by Thomas throwing a spear into its face, causing it to be crushed by the last wall.**

“Yeah Thomas!” Cheers Chuck.

The greenie smiles at the 13-year-old sadly, he had missed Chuck ever since they left the Maze. 

**The gladers are panting, before the opening in front suddenly closes, making a few yell in alarm.**

Minho snorts. “You literally jumped at me when the light went out.” he snickered at Thomas. 

The greenie’s face blushed slightly, his ears turning pink. “I did not!” he said, trying to sound unbothered.

“You totally did.” whispered Newt.

Thomas looked at him dangerously, daring him to say more. 

Newt put his hands up in surrender, much to the amusement of the people watching the interaction. 

Thomas turned back to the screen. 

**The door behind them lets out a squeal of releasing air pressure.**

**Lights behind the door illuminate the gladers faces, who are huddled together.**

Minho looked triumphant as his claim by proven, bumping Thomas on the shoulder in a teasing manner. 

The greenie just focused on Chuck, who was looking apprehensive at the screen, knowing what was coming next. 

**Teresa reaches forward, and pushes the door open, creaking loudly.**

**Chuck covers his eyes from the onslaught of light.**

**The girl turns back to the group, before stepping out, the others slowly following.**

**Thomas steps over the high metal frame, and walks around the thick door into a stone hallway lined with pipes.**

**A sound echoes from behind. The group turns to see overhead lights turn on one by one in quick succession.**

“That's creepy.” said Aris. 

**Now alight, the hallway looked endless on both sides, no door in sight.**

**The scene changes to show them walking down the corridor, Thomas at the front, leading the group.**

**They eventually come to stop in front of a metal door. On the wall next to it, is a green light.**

**Their gaze raises up, and above the door, is a glowing green exit sign.**

**“Seriously?” asks Frypan.**

The theater laughs.

Gally smirks at frypan, who returns it in full. 

**Thomas walks closer to the door. He slowly grabs the metal handle, turning it quickly.**

**The group watches on as he pushes open the door, revealing a hallway littered with dead bodys. Gas pipes are leaking, and a dull alarm comes from above.**

“What the hell happened?” asked Jorge. 

“You’ll find out.” Says Minho, looking distinctly 

**They step inside gradually, looking at the blood splattered around the corpses. The lights flicker as Thomas looks into a room. Inside, two body’s are laying on metal operating tables, cloth draped over them, leaking blood.**

“Isn't that..?” Begins Aris. “From your memories…” he continues questioningly

Thomas nods. 

**They pass a man in tactical gear laying on the floor, a gun held loosely by dead fingers.**

**“What happened here?” someone asks.**

**Bullet marks cover the glass walls separating the individual rooms.**

**The group climbs through a broken door, stepping on crushed glass and machinery.**

**Inside, is a control room. More bodies litter the ground, all of them wearing white lab coats.**

**The gladers wander around, looking at the different screens.**

**Newt and Minho approach a monitor displaying video footage of the glade, along with brain scans, measuring the brain waves of the gladers.**

“They literally watched you guys suffer. I’m so glad we killed those bastards.” Brenda said. 

The previously dead galders look up in surprise. 

“Killed them?” asks Chuck. 

“Yeah… You’ll find out at some point. I promise.” Minho says. 

**“So they were watchin’ us.” Newt says, leaning on the counter.**

**Thomas is taking off his leather pack as he gazes at something, before he walks forward.**

**“This whole time.” Newt continues.**

**Thomas comes to a stop, just as Teresa walks around the other side of the room, pausing in front of something.**

**The view turns to show that they were standing by the same stations they had worked at before.**

“Oh. This was where you worked.” said Chuck. 

“Yeah.” Said Thomas sourly, he hated that place, so many deaths happened because he was in that very control room.

**Thomas looks up at Teresa, an indecipherable look on his face.**

**The boy touches the tip of his finger on a flashing red circle. Not even a second later, the big screen displayed at the main desk glitches on.**

“So that’s how it turned on,” said Winston. 

**The woman from Thomas's memory appears, she’s sitting in a glass office, her white outfit, and blonde hair perfect, not a hair out of place.**

**“Hello. My name is Doctor Ava Paige. I’m director of operations of the World Catastrophe Killzone Department.”**

“Wicked.” Said Newt hatefully. Because of these klunks, he had to make one of the most painful decisions in his life. He only hoped Thomas was happy now. And, from what he’s heard, They’re safe away from Wicked, so at least that worked out. 

**The gladers turn to the screen from around the room.**

**“If you're watching this, that means you’ve successfully completed the Maze Trials.”**

Gally scoffs. “Bitch.” he mutters. These people ruined his life, and made him go crazy for a little while. 

**The group gathers at the screen, watching it warily.**

**“I wish I could be there in person to congratulate you…”**

“I don't think this calls for celebration.” says Minho angrily. Many glader died in their efforts to escape. 

**An alarm blares in the background. The doctors seen outside the glass start to evacuate. Dr.Paige is unaffected.**

**“But circumstances seem to have prevented it. I'm sure by now, you must all be very confused, angry, frightened.”**

**The gladers look at Dr. Paige in varying states of the very things she just described.**

**“I can only assure you, that everything that's happened to you, everything we’ve done to you, it was all done for a reason. You won't remember, but the sun has scorched our world.”**

“What?” asks Jeff. 

**The screen displays the sun rising, fires engulfing houses, cars, and families.**

“So we would escape one hell, only to be thrown into another?” someone asked. 

Minho nodded, looking similarly pissed off. 

**“Billions of lives, lost to fire, famine. Suffering on global scale. The fallout was unimaginable.”**

**Dead bodies are clumped together on screen, covered in mud.**

**Thomas looks down.**

**“What came after was worse.”**

**He raises his gaze at the claim.**

**“We called it the flare.”**

**Images of the virus are shown, before changing to tools picking a human brain blackening on the inside.**

Brenda winces, she was so close to becoming like that if Thomas hadn’t been there. 

Teresa merely looked depressed. She had been thinking about her mother, and how she had been infected by the virus. 

**“A deadly virus that attacks the brain.”**

**Thomas looks shocked as the video continues to play.**

**“It is violent. Unpredictable.”**

**A video of some infected shows up on the screen. Their veins are blackened, while they thrash and scream as doctors try to hold them steady, injecting a fluid that halts the infectee, before it settles.**

**“Incurable.”**

Dr. Paige looked at Thomas wondrously. This boy was a miracle, millions of children to combat the virus, and he turned out to be the real cure. 

**“Or so we thought.”**

**Dr paige appears once again on screen.**

**“In time a new generation emerged that could survive the virus. Suddenly, there was a reason to hope for a cure. But finding it would not be easy. The young would have to be tested.”**

**Chuck shuffles, and looks at another glader, worried on his face.**

**“Even sacrificed, inside harsh environments. Where their brain activity could be studied.”**

“Where they could also die.” says Mary angrily. “And many did, all because you wanted to be safe in your white penthouse, above all the suffering people trapped outside the city.”

Janson nodded viciously, while Dr. Paige looked at the children inside the theater, seeing their youthful faces contorted with anger. 

**Thomas looks at Teresa, who looks down.**

**“All in an effort to understand what makes them different. What makes you different. You may not realize it, but you're very important. Unfortunately your trials have just begun. As you no doubt soon discover, not everyone agrees without method.”**

“I wonder why? Oh, maybe it's the permanent emotional scarring you keav on these kids. Or maybe it's the fact that you use them for inhuman experiments for your own benefit.” Says Brenda angrily. 

Newt puts a hand on her shoulder, calming her down. 

**Behind Dr. Paige, scientists are being shot from off camera.**

**“Progress is slow. People are scared. It may be too late for us, for me.”**

**In the background, people in army-like outfits invade with machine guns, shooting everyone in sight.**

**“But not for you.”**

**Thomas looks at the feed, shocked. Standing just behind him, Minho glaces at the greenie, before paying attention to doctor Paige.**

**“The outside world awaits. Remember…”**

**Gunmen are shooting at the glass surrounding her.**

**Dr. Paige raises a revolver to her temple.**

**“Wicked is good.”**

**Thomas shakes his head slightly, horrified.**

**Dr paige inhales, before the scene shows the gladers from behind, flinching back as a gunshot goes off.**

“Good riddance.” said Jeff, not seeing the looks directed at him from the gladers who escaped. 

**Thomas turns away from the screen. In his light of sight, he suddenly looks to see the same woman laying just a couple feet away, dead.**

**He pushes past Chuck and Newt, who looks concerned, before realizing what the greenie was staring at.**

**The glader follows behind him as he slowly approaches the body, but before they could get any closer, an alarm goes off at their right.**

**In front of them, a yellow door opens to a dark hallway, light visible through a crack in the middle.**

**Chuck turns to Thomas, before looking back at the corridor.**

**“Is it over?” he asks.**

**Thomas, still staring shocked at the new way out, didn't answer.**

**“She said we were important.” Newt says. “Then what are we supposed to do now?” he finishes.**

**Thomas shakes his head slightly, his breath increasing. He turns his head, before shakily responding. “I-i don't know.”**

**He licks his lip, looking back at the exit.**

**“But let's get outta here.”**

Alby smiles. At least they got out in one piece. 

**They're about to walk forward, before being interrupted.**

**“No.” says a voice.**

“What? Who’s there?” asks someone. 

**They turn, and Gally is standing there, a gun in his right hand, a device from a griever in his left.**

“Gally?!” the theater says in unison.

The glader winces. He looked at Chuck, who just patted him on the shoulder, a look of understanding on the young boy’s face. 

**Thomas pushes through.**

**“Gally?”**

**He is about to go to him, when Teresa puts a hand on his chest.**

**“Don't. He’s been stung.” she says. Gally has blue veins crawling up his neck, his arms slightly shaking.**

“You were stung?” asks Alby. 

“Yeah. I was.” Gally answers, looking exhausted by just watching this scene.

**Gally stands there, clearly trying to hold in a sob. The grip of his gun tightening. He breathes in shakily, before shaking his head.**

**“We can't leave.” he says.**

“What does he mean?” asked someone. 

**The view shows the gun shaking in the gladers hand and Thomas raises his hands up slightly.**

**“We did. Gally, we’re out. We're free.” Thomas says, trying to calm down the boy.**

**Gally inhales. “Free?” he motions around him, barely holding in tears.**

Gally closed his eyes, he’s had nightmares about this night since it happened. The emotions he experienced during this were ones that had imprinted on him.

**“You think we're free out there?”**

**Chuck looks at Thomas warily.**

**“No.” Gally continues. “No. There’s no escape from this place.”**

**Gally raises the gun toward Thomas.**

“What are you doing!?” asked Jeff. 

Gally just leaned his head down, trying to not think about Chuck. 

**The gladers shift around Thomas protectively, who holds his hands higher.**

**Thomas breathes heavily. “G-gally listen to me. You're not thinking straight.”**

**Minho reaches to grab the spear next to him.**

**“You’re not. And we can help you. Just put down the gun.”**

**Gally doesn't waver. “I belong to the Maze.”**

Janson chuckles darkley. 

Chuck, hearing the laughter quickly shot out of his seat, grabbing a rock from one of his pockets. He grabbed it, and threw it venomously at the man. 

Ratman looked up for a second, only to see something flying towards him, before a blinding pain took over his head, making it fly backwards, dizzying him. Warm liquid dripped down his forehead as he looked up again. 

The glader looked at chuck surprised, completely frozen at what the boy did. 

Frypan jumps up, and highfives chuck. “I've wanted to do that for years man!” he yells, laughing.

The theater bursts out laughing, much to the anger of Janson, who was holding his forehead. 

“Brat!” Janson reaches for his gun, but remembers that he hasn't had it since this stupid viewing started. 

He stood up, ready to kill the boy with his bare hands, when Thomas and Newt stood up, making a wall in between Ratman and Chuck.

“Unless you want to have more blood to go with that cut, than you better sit back down.  _ Now _ .” Said Thomas dangerously. 

The gladers watch, amazed at the aura that Thomas and Newt were exuding. 

Janson was about to smack the brat, when Dr. Paige interrupted. 

“Janson. Sit down.” she said, not even looking at him. 

The man, extremely pissed off, reluctantly sat down, glaring at Thomas. 

**Chuck looks at Thomas worriedly.**

**“Just put down the gun.”**

Nervousness filled the theater, primary near the gladers. They had never even seen Gally cry before, much less go through a breakdown like this. 

**“We all do.” Gally sobs. His finger closes on the trigger.**

“No!” said Alby. 

**“GALLY!” Thomas yells.**

**“NO!” Chuck screams jumping in front of the greenie.**

**Minho throws the spear, landing it directly in Gally’s heart. The glader gasps for air, falling to his knees.**

The gladers gasp. 

**Newt watches warily.**

**The glader falls onto his side, his eyes going numb, before he stops shifting.**

**Chuck blinks quickly, inhaling shaikly.**

**“Thomas.”**

**The glader looks at him. A red stain starts to grow on Chuck's shirt, a small hole above his chest.**

“No! What is happening? Chuck got shot?” asked Jeff in surprise. 

**“Chuck!” Thomas whispers. He catches the boy as he falls, putting pressure on the wound.**

**Thomas holds the young boy's head.**

**“Chuck!”**

**He tears the boy's shirt away slightly.**

**“Shit. Shit.”**

**“Look at me, look at me, look at me.” Thomas says, Chucks breathing increasing.**

**“Ah Shit. Chuck look at me alright?”**

The gladers start to tear up. Chuck was the youngest kid in their midst. They treated him like a little brother, and now, he’s been shot. 

**Teresa is gapping at the scene. The gladers hovering above. One shakes his head slightly.**

**“I need you to just hang on. Shit shit shit.”**

**Chuck grabs Thomas by the arm. He holds up the wooden figure, breathing labored.**

**“No, no. Chuck, you're gonna give it to them yourself. Remember I told you that?” Thomas is starting to cry, his eyes overflowing slightly.**

**“Take it.” whispers chuck.**

**The gladers are crying, surrounding the dying boy.**

**“Thank you.” he says, putting the carving in Thomas’s hand.**

**“Thank you.”**

“No… please.” whispered someone. 

**“No Chuck your gonna-”**

**The boy stills, he breaths pausing, before letting out an exhale.**

Everyone’s tears are overflowing, drenching their cheeks. Even Gally is letting a few fall, watching the life drain out of Chuck's body for a second time. 

Chuck is sitting uncomfortably as Thomas starts shaking, trying to keep himself from breaking down. The greenie just pulls Chuck in close, not letting go of him, fearing that the boy would be taken from him again. 

**“Chuck?” whispers Thomas. He inhales shakily, gabbing the boy by his shoulder. “Chuck?!”**

**The greenie shakes him. “Hey!”**

**The boy doesn't move.**

**“Hey Chuck come on!”**

The boy hugs the greenie tighter, watching as Thomas is torn apart by his death. Thomas makes no move to let go, and Newt rests a hand on his shoulder, trying to sooth the glader. 

“It's okay. Chuck is here now. I’ll make sure that he stays with us this time.” Newt says to Thomas. 

“Thanks Newt.” Chuck says in place of the greenie, who is obviously still having flashbacks from that day. 

**Chuck's eyes are open, but no life is seen through the brown color.**

**“Come on! Wake up!” Thomas sobs. He puts his forehead against the boy's chest.**

The viewers watch with a sort of horrified surprise. They had never seen Thomas this emotional before. Which only showed how precious this boy was to the greenie. 

**Teresa cries quietly behind them, and Newt covers his face, trying to hold back tears.**

**“Dammit! We made it come on!” sobs Thomas.**

**Minho closes his eyes, his face stony.**

**“AH DAMMIT!” Thomas yells.**

**Suddenly, the door down the hallway opens up, light flooding into the room.**

“What?..” Starts someone, before stopping. It wasn't really the right time for questions. 

**Figures are seen jogging through the door as Thomas's cries of anguish echo.**

**The gladers look back, before quickly turning back towards the greenie.**

**“Thomas..” whispers Teresa mournfully. The sound in the room dulles.**

**The armed men run in, herding the group outside.**

**“Lets go!” “Come on!”**

**The screen shows Thomas shaking Chuck by the shoulders, screaming for him to wake up as the gladers are pulled away from behind him.**

Thomas has turned back to the screen, a stoney expression keeping his emotions in check. 

**The men push the kids roughley, grabbing them by the arms.**

**One guy tries to pull Thomas away, only to be hit. The greenie scrambles forward to get back to Chuck.**

**Two other men drag Thomas by the arms as he screams and flails in their grip, trying to bring the 13-year-old with him.**

Chuck watches horrified as the men try to take Thomas away, leaving his body there. 

**Gally is shown, barely breathing, gazing numbly at Chuck's dead body, Thomas’s yells echoing in the background.**

“You were still alive?” asks Alby. 

“Yeah.” Gally says gravelly. 

**Thomas is being pulled through the door, sobbing roughly.**

**“You can't just leave him there!” he screams.**

Teresa is crying again. She had truly mourned Chuck after he died, and seeing Thomas’s reaction just made her feel worse about what she did to Minho. 

**The camera shows the control room, bodies strewn around the room.**

**Thomas is dragged by his arms towards the bright doorway, before showing the gladers running through sand outside.**

**They haul the greenie out into the blinding sunlight, his face scrunching up in pain, before looking around confusedly.**

“How did they know you were there?” someone asks. 

“You’ll find out eventually.” said Minho sourly. 

He was sent confused looks by the gladers who didn’t escape. Why did he look so angry? He had just gotten saved from that hell hole. 

**He turned back, falling to the ground. The men grab him quickly, pulling him up as he runs towards a helicopter.**

**Thomas stumbled up to the transport, the men ushering him in quickly, setting him onto the floor with the rest of the group.**

**The rotors start, and the helicopter door is closed.**

**Inside, a man takes off a cloth face mask. “You guys alright?” he asks.**

**They look at him warily, Thomas and Newt sharing suspicious glances.**

**“Don't worry,” he says. “You’re safe now.”**

Newt snorts. “Yeah right.” he says. 

Some send him confused looks. 

**Teresa gazes through the window, before looking at the man, who seems to be getting comfortable.**

**The helicopter takes off flying away from a stone structure.**

**Newt looks out the window, the other gladers following suit. Teresa gasps slightly.**

**The man looks amused, turning to glance at it.**

**From above, they can see the Maze in its eternity. The glade in the middle, before stone walls intermingle, creating a horrid sort of puzzle, made for only those looking for extreme confusion.**

The glader who didn't make it to the helicopter watch in a sort of crude fascination. So that was what they were trapped in for 3 years. 

**Newt looks away, and Teresa sits roughly back onto the floor.**

**“Relax kid.” Thomas looks at the man. “Everything’s gonna change.” he says.**

“That's a nice way of putting it.” mutters Frypan angrily. 

**The scene shows a woman walking around a table, her heel clicking on the floor noisily.**

**They round the corner, and we see that it is Dr. Paige, who is wiping fake blood off the side of her head.**

“She's not dead!?” asked Jeff. 

“No. That bitch made us think that she died to give us a false sense of safety.” Said Minho, looking pissed off. 

Dr. Paige didn’t show any sort of reaction towards the insult, continuing to watch the screen. 

“False?..” muttered Chuck worriedly. 

**“Well. I think it's safe to say the Maze trials were a complete success.” she says, taking off her white jacket, the assistant behind her grabbing it.**

**Minho is shown sitting numbly inside the helicopter.**

**“I wasn’t expecting so many survivors, but,” Dr. Paige continues in the background.**

Mary inhales angrily at Dr. Paige's complete nonchalance at the death of innocent children. 

**The camera shows the gladers, looking worn out.**

**“The more the merrier.”**

**Newt glances back at the greenie, who sits wearily, a grieving look on his face.**

**“Thomas, continues to surprise and impress.”**

The glader shifts in his seat uncomfortably. He hated the fact that Paige was so focused on him.

**Said boy looks at a wooden carving held between his shaking hands, the light wood stained with red blood.**

Chuck smiles sadly. He’s glad Thomas tried to keep his promise. 

**“And for now, they seem to have taken the bait.” She says.**

“I want to murder that woman.” said Harriet. 

“Already got it handled.” said Gally. Some questioning looks are sent his way. 

“I didn’t kill her, it's just that she did get killed at some point.” he explained. 

Dr. Paige glares slightly at Janson, who doesn't move. 

**Thomas grips the carving tightly, looking away from the one thing left of Chuck, tears slipping down his cheeks.**

Newt massages the greenie's shoulder. 

**“It's too soon to say, but, they could be the key to everything.”**

“Who knew that she would be right in the end.” whisper Teresa. 

**The greenie exhales shaikly, closing his eyes.**

**Dr. Paige appears again. “So let's move forward. It is time now to begin phase 2.” she says smiling.**

“Phase 2?” asks Chuck. 

Thomas just shakes his head. 

**The helicopter is shown flying towards a destroyed city, buildings on the verge of collapse. The screen turns black.**

**White letters appear on screen.**

**_The end.. For now._ **

“For now?”

Silence rings through the theater. 

“So that was uh… enlightening.” Said Jorge.

“No shit.” said Harriet. 

Thomas sat quietly while others discussed what happened during the movie. He was debating every single thing he could have done to save the lives of the gladers.Watching this just fueled his twisted perspective of what he should have done. He could have saved Alby, Chuck, Jeff,…Newt… and many more if he could just keep his shit in line. 

Newt looked at Thomas, who was picking at his fingernails, and looked to be deep on thought. The glader reached over, and touched Thomas on the shoulder. 

Thomas was suddenly brought out of his spiraling thoughts by a warm hand on his shoulder. He looked to see Newt next to him, a knowing look on his face. 

“Newt…” he started, an indecipherable shine in his eyes. 

“No thomas. It's okay. I know what you’re thinking. And it's  _ okay _ . I know you did your best. And that's what matta’s.”

Thomas nodded slowly, processing Newt's words. 

Chuck, who watched the interaction, patted Thomas on the arm, smiling at him reassuringly. 

Thomas smiled slightly back. 

“It was weird to watch all of that, but at least this ones over.” Chuck says. 

“I guess so.” Thomas responds shortly, slowly starting to dread watching beyond this point. 

The theater quieted down, their separate discussions stopping. 

“Is there more?” someone asked.

“Of course there's more, the screen said that it would show how Wicked was taken down.” their friend responded. 

Janson growled in his seat. 

“Hey, why don’t we just move on?” suggested Clint. 

At his words, more text appeared on the screen. 

**_Next, you all will be watching a film called Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, where you will see what happens after Thomas and the rest of the gladers after they escape the maze._ **

“Okay…” said Jeff. “Let's get to it.” 

**The End.**


End file.
